Rebirth
by WildBubblesRoam
Summary: After experiencing the terrors and tragedies of war, and hiding away in the muggle world, Hermione Granger is forced to find her way back into the wizarding world. With the aid of an unlikely individual, it is unclear what her future will hold.
1. Chapter 1

**_Author's Notes: I always hate first chapters. They always seem so boring. But you have to start somewhere, right? Let me know what you think so far, any comments are greatly appreciated and always encourage me to update more often! :) Enjoy._**

She was walking down the old castle's halls with a pile of books held tightly against her chest; they were a sort of makeshift shield to protect her from flying elbows. A class of Six-years was just streaming out of the room to her right and somehow they all seemed to bump and push her on their way down the corridor. She felt so small, so fragile, and her books were the only thing holding her all together. It was her first year at Hogwarts and she couldn't possibly have been any more nervous. If she could only reach the library, then she could find a quiet little corner to read in peace. Shoving her way through the packed crowd of squirrely students, she could see the entrance just a little further ahead. She let out a deep breath and smiled at the familiar sight.

As she took another step forward, an ear-piercing scream brought her to a halt. She stopped, startled, and looked around for who was screaming. She scanned over the corridor but couldn't find the source, until she spotted the terrified little girl huddled behind a stone pillar to her left. She moved towards her, aiming to calm the poor girl, but then she heard another scream behind her. As she spun around, a third cry off to her right joined in. Within a matter of seconds, everyone around her was screaming, yelling, and crying out as they each fell to the ground one by one. Dropping her books to plug her ears, she closed her eyes and tried to drown out their voices with her own, deep within her head. _'Calm down, Hermione. It's not real. This isn't true, none of it. Just open your eyes. You're dreaming. Open your eyes!'_ Her breathing started to slow and she willed herself to just trust and open her eyes.

With a big gulp, Hermione loosened her grip on the bed sheets crumbled in her fists and glanced around the room-her room. It wasn't her dormitory from back when she was in Hogwarts. No, she hadn't been anywhere near Hogwarts in two years, not after the war finally ended. She was back home, in the safety of her parents' house where no one from the wizarding world could reach her. The protective charms she encased the house in could ensured exactly that. No visits, no letters, no owls, and most certainly no death eaters at her doorstep. She had isolated herself completely from the magical world and it had worked well enough so far.

Hermione brushed a loose strand of unruly hair from her face and dragged herself out of bed. Her feet found the soft, cushy fabric of her purple slippers just as there was a knock on her door. "Sweetheart?" It was her mother.

"I'm fine, mum. Just another bad dream. Thanks." For a moment, Hermione could sense her mum still standing outside her door, but after another few seconds of silence, she heard the footsteps leading back down the hallway again. Her parents still didn't know everything that had happened. How could she tell them? The dangers she had been in. All the pain and struggle she had gone through. And for what? What had this triumphant war given her except nightly terrors and a growing case of paranoia? She only left the house when it was absolutely necessary and never let her wand out of her sight.

Hermione stared at the door a moment longer before getting up. She stretched and felt her back crack, along with her knees. She was only twenty but her body refused to believe her. Whether it was her inactivity and isolation, or the old battle scars that left her joints stiff, she didn't know, but she knew the daily doses of anxiety and depression weren't helping either. Dragging her slippered feet over the carpeted floor, Hermione made her way to the vanity mirror above her dresser and examined the bags under her eyes. It had been so long since she slept more than a few hours at a time and her youthful face was beginning to wear the consequences. As she bit her lower lip and prodded her hair away from her face with a coarse brush, she heard the doorknob jiggle behind her. "I told you mum, I'm fine. Really. I-," She watched the door creak open through the mirror and expected to see her mother walk through with a cup of tea to help ease her into the day, but her words caught in her throat as the black cloak was revealed in the doorframe. He seemed to float into the room and before she could grab her wand off the nightstand beside her bed, she felt the tip of his own wand pressed firmly against her back. She closed her eyes tightly. _'He's not real, Hermione! He's not! Open your eyes! Wake up! Now!'_

_"Yesss, mudblood. Look at me. I want to sssee the lightsss leave your eyesss."_ His voice chilled her to the bone as she heard him slither closer behind her. She could feel his hot breath on her neck and it made her skin crawl and her gut retch inside her. She tried to overpower his hissing voice with her own but it was too much and she let him in during a moment of weakness. _"I said Look At ME."_ It wasn't any louder than before but his tone had shifted. The demand for obedience suddenly deepened and she knew if she didn't listen, she wouldn't be alive to hear him again. With all her strength and her knees shaking under the weight of her trembling frame, she opened her eyes just a sliver. It all happened so quickly, a matter of seconds really, but she had never felt such fear before in her entire life. His face was directly in front of her and she could see the unnatural texture of his pale grey skin. The slits of his flattened nose flared slightly as he let out a horrifying hiss and lunged for her face. Just as his head was about to collide violently with her own, her real eyes opened and she snapped back to reality. She was sitting upright in her bed with a sheen of fresh sweat covering her body and her heart pounding in her chest.

Her hand grabbed at the wand sitting on the table beside her bed as her eyes darted around the room. It was empty-dark, but empty. She was squinting at a suspicious shadow in the corner next to her bookshelf when a sound at the door startled her. Her wand immediately trained on the door as she heard the knock, and then her mother's concerned voice. "Sweetheart? You were screaming again…"

Hermione lowered her wand and let out a sigh of relief before calling out, "I'm fine, mum. Just another little dream."

"Are you sure? Do you want me to put the kettle on for you?" Hermione smiled down at her wand and chuckled softly as she remembered how eerily similar this conversation was to the one in her nightmare. It was pathetic but all she could do was laugh quietly to herself with her wand resting loosely in her sweaty palm.

"Yeah, that'd be great, mum. Thanks."

**_Don't forget to review! Chapter two should be up shortly._**

**_xoxo__ WildBubblesRoam_**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author Notes: Lots of dialogue**_**_ with some mild action towards the end. For anyone who's reading this for the HG/LM pairing, no worries! Lucius will make his appearance in Chapter 3. I promise!_**

Chapter 2

Day after day, the breakfast table became the most uncomfortable part of her day. Her parents sat quietly, sipping their tea in between little nibbles on their toast and eggs. Hermione cooked every morning; she was awake long before anyone else, and living in her parent's home rent-free for the past two years. It was the least she could do to feel like less of a burden. As she sat down with a glass of juice and her own plate, her father shifted his eyes from the table to her seat cautiously. "You were screaming in your sleep again, darling." He was a blunt man but he had a way of adding a little sweetness to his tone.

Hermione shrugged and took a bite of the egg dangling off her fork. "I know." It was all she could think to say and she seemed to say it more often lately. It was an easy way to brush off the conversation starter.

Her mother broke the awkward silence this time. "You had another one of your night terrors, sweetheart?" Hermione gave a small, careless nod and kept her eyes on her breakfast. Her parents exchanged a single glance before her mother tried again. "Would you like to talk about it? Maybe it'll help."

"No." She answered quickly, as she always did. At least once a week her parents would question what was terrorizing her so much and she would shut them down each and every time. It was nothing new and they had become accustomed to this morning ritual. Hermione looked at the clock and discovered her way out of the unpleasant topic of her sleeping patterns. "Dad, it's almost 8 o'clock. You'll be late for work before much longer." Her father stood from the table as he noticed the time and quickly downed the rest of his tea. With a muffled grumble about how quickly time flies and a kiss on Hermione's forehead, he was out the door. His wife followed him to the car and kissed him goodbye, wishing him good luck with the morning commute.

As Mrs. Granger walked back into the house, Hermione was clearing the plates off the table and into the sink. "I better get going too. Could you pick up the dry cleaning today? You said you were going into town, didn't you?" Hermione nodded. She didn't want to go to town. She didn't want to leave the house at all, but she had been to the library in over two weeks. Against everything her nerves were telling her, she needed to get a new stack of books before she went completely insane. With a 'thank you' and a kiss on Hermione's cheek, her mother was out the door and Hermione was finally left alone.

The morning passed quickly and before Hermione knew it, it was late afternoon. Her parents would be home soon and if she hadn't gone out at all again, she knew they would be disappointed. Her paranoia was turning her into a hermit and they most certainly noticed. Shrugging on her jacket and grabbing her purse—her wand safely tucked inside, she carefully stepped outside the safety of her home. With a deep breath and one more quick glance at the world around her, she began walking into town. It wasn't far, but walking helped to calm her nerves. Looking up at the sky seemed to settle her down and for a moment, she almost felt normal again.

Her first stop was, of course, to the library. They closed earlier than the dry cleaners and if Hermione were to miss one place, she'd rather it be the cleaners. An hour later with her new books shrunk down inside her purse, Hermione stepped back onto the street. She had half an hour before the dry cleaners closed and it was only a five minute walk. Quietly priding herself on her good timing, the young witch made her way to her final errand. She rounded a corner and spotted the storefront. Sure enough, it was still open but as she started towards it, something caught her eye further down the line of shops. A bush of bright red hair, tossed messily atop the head of a tall, freckled young man stole her attention a few stores away. Not believing what her eyes were showing her, Hermione stood in awe until she noticed his eyes landed square on her's. In a frantic hope that he didn't actually see her, Hermione ran around the corner she had just came from and pressed her body firmly against the brick wall. Her heart was racing and she could feel herself sweating but the one thing she was worried about was her breathing. It was so loud, she was sure he could hear her from all the way down the street. She clapped a hand over her mouth until she was certain it was quiet enough to not give her position away. Hermione glanced down at her watch. _'If I don't go now, the cleaners is going to close and I can't go home empty handed. I just can't.'_ She tried to reason with herself, beg herself to just go for it. Make a bee-line for the dry cleaners store and forget she ever saw Ron at all. _'You can do this. Just go! Go!'_ She stayed where she was. _'Now, go! Go…now!'_ Again, she didn't move. _'Ok…on the count of three. One…two…Oh God…' _She closed her eyes tightly and leaned her head against the wall. It was now or never. She had to do this or she'd be stuck to this wall all night. _'Three!'_

Hermione opened her eyes and flung herself around the corner, colliding roughly with another body. After a quick shuffle and a warm hand catching her by the wrist, she recovered less than elegantly. "Oh man, 'Mione! It **is** you!" She heard his voice because actually meeting his face but she knew it could be none other than Ronald Weasley, her former love. "I wasn't sure. I only got a quick glance before you disappeared but I knew it was you as soon as I saw you!" Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms and squeezed her against his chest. The embrace was so familiar, so very much missed, but she knew she couldn't take it guilt-free. " 'Mione, I've missed you. We all have." And there it was. She was waiting for the moment he would break her heart, just as she had done two years ago. But he wasn't finished. Slowly shaking his head with a mixture of both joy and sadness written all over his face, Ron swallowed hard and continued. "I thought you were dead…"

Two years back, after the final war was over and everyone was free from the threat of Voldemort's wraith, Hermione made the hardest decision in her life. She left. Without a word to Ron, or Harry, or even her best friend, Ginny… she disappeared. One morning before anyone else was awake and after the fourth night of absolutely no sleep without constant night terrors, the young witch packed a small bag with her belongings and apparited out of sight. She quickly laid down the protective charms, a skill she had mastered while on the run with Harry and Ron. It was the most difficult choice she had ever made and she knew how much it must have hurt them, especially Ron, but she couldn't live in that world any more. Voldemort was gone but his death eaters weren't. Some had gone missing, while others were locked away in Azkaban, but what about those still in hiding? They had such a hatred for her and her kind—muggleborns. Surely their opinions hadn't changed overnight simply because their leader had been killed. So many of her friends had died during the war, some right in front of her, and she couldn't bear to live around the survivors with that constant reminder of what they had all gone through. It was all too much and she didn't see any other option but to simply leave it all behind and return to the muggle world she was raised in.

Her mind was a chaotic mess of emotions and thoughts as she stared at Ron, his hands still holding onto her's. She looked down at them and slowly pulled away from his grasp. "Ron…I…" She didn't know what she wanted to say—what she could say, so she just shook her head and tried to keep a strong face despite everything she was feeling. Seeing him so unexpectedly, after so long made the feelings of their past together come rushing back to her. But she knew now that he saw she was alive, he would want her to come back to the wizarding world with him and that wasn't something she could bring herself to do. "What are you even doing here?"

Ron smiled and pointed back to the storefront he was standing by when she spotted him. "Ginny and mum are picking out dresses. We've been out all day going to different shops, both wizard and muggle, trying on this, finding the perfect color for that," He made a disgusted look and explained. "I couldn't stand being in another dress shop, so I stepped outside and there you were." His face lit up at the mention of her and Hermione had to look away. He was getting so excited, probably planning out their future together already.

She had to change the topic, and quickly. Glancing down the street at the shop he pointed out, she noticed the window was filled with differently designed wedding dresses. "Dress shopping?" She asked.

With an excited nod and another growing grin, Ron answered. "Yeah! You haven't heard… My sister's getting married! I'm going to be Harry's best man! They'll be so happy to see you. I'm sure mum can find the perfect bridesmaid dress for you too." He had grabbed her hand again and was beginning to walk towards the dress shop, guiding Hermione along behind him.

"Ron, stop!" Yanking her hand away, Hermione stopped before Ron could pull her any closer to the dress shop. "I'm not going to the wedding. I'm not going back with you, I'm sorry…" Her words trailed off as she saw the disappointment reach his eyes. Quietly, Hermione mumbled, "I can't. I'm sorry." His expression killed her but she knew she couldn't face Ginny and Mrs. Weasley. Seeing Ron again was bad enough but if Molly Weasley got a hold of her, she wouldn't have a choice but to return to the burrow with them. The Weasleys had acted as a surrogate family for Hermione and Harry every time they visited the burrow and Hermione knew there was no way she could face the cheery, motherly face of Mrs. Weasley.

It took a moment for Ron to truly register what Hermione was telling him, but as soon as it hit, it hit hard. "But 'Mione…I love you. I thought you were dead. We all did. We were all looking for you but you were just…" He struggled to find the right word but eventually all he could land on was, "…gone."

She could feel the tears threatening to take over her eyes and blur her vision but she did all she could to hold them back. When she left the burrow before, she had the luxury of not having to witness the heartache she had caused. None of the tears, the long nights where Ron tossed and turned, wondering what happened to his young love; it was all foreign to her but now she saw it all. His eyes glossed over as he tried to hold it all in, but as his nose turned red along with his cheeks, Hermione could tell how painful this truly was for him. "I'm not letting you go again, Hermione. I'm not." He paused to gulp down the lump forming in his throat before continuing. "I lost you once but I can't lose you again. I won't. Please, 'Mione." His voice cracked as he said her name and it was the last thing she needed in that moment. A single tear broke free from her eye and she wiped it away quickly before any more followed suit.

Shaking her head again, Hermione tried to put together the words she needed to say, but behind Ron's head, she spotted the door to the dress shop opening and two red-headed women walking out. Ron saw her staring behind him and looked over his shoulder just in time to see the wide-eyed look of shock on his mother's and sister's faces. He felt the air around him shift and change and knew if he didn't act quickly, he would lose Hermione forever. Just as she faded away with a pop, he reached out and grabbed onto her arm, hoping he wasn't too late.

In a matter of seconds, Hermione was transported from the muggle shopping alley to another street, a familiar street. A small back lane in Diagon Alley. It didn't make sense but she didn't have time to think of where to apparite to. The adrenaline was thrashing through her veins, sending her pulse into overdrive as she tried to catch her breath. She hadn't used any form of magic in at least a month, and she couldn't even remember the last time she apparited anywhere. She collapsed on the ground as she tried to successfully ride the last few waves of her sudden panic attack. She couldn't help but wonder what would happen now that they knew she was alive. Would they send out a search party for her? Would Harry cancel the wedding to find her? Before she could collect her thoughts and fully settle her nerves, she felt a hand clasp on her shoulder. " 'Mione…"

He sounded like he was in pain and as she turned around, she could see why. His attempt to follow her through apparition worked, but not without a price. There was a large gash just above his hip and his shirt was beginning to soak in a growing stain of blood. Instantly her mind flashed back to that time in the woods. Ron almost died back then because of apparition and it was up to her to save him. Now there he laid, covered in his own blood because of her again. The images flashing through her head quickly shifted from their time in the woods to the battle at Hogwarts. There was blood then too; the cobblestone was covered in it. Bodies of under-aged students littered the long corridors, along with familiar people from her past. Professor Lupin and Tonks stuck out right away, their lifeless forms crumbled on the ground like nothing more than discarded ragdolls. Hermione wondered how their now-orphaned son was progressing. Was he walking yet? Talking? Does Harry see him often and tell him about how brave the small child's parents were? It was thoughts like this that haunted her during the day but when she went to sleep at night, all she saw was the blood, the bodies, and the face of the man—no, the creature that had caused it all. Voldemort. His snake-like figure popped into her head as his red eyes pierced through her like a thousand tiny, sharp daggers. She yelled out and tried to close her eyes only to realize her eyes were already closed. It wasn't real, none of it. They were only flashbacks and they couldn't hurt her. But as her vision came into focus, she saw Ron lying out in front of her, a hand pinned to his hip to try to stop the bleeding, and she panicked.

She could hear his voice calling out to her but it didn't matter. Her mind was overloaded, flooded with confusion and all she could think to do was run. Pushing herself up off the street, she ran as hard as she could, for as long as she could, until she felt her lungs beginning to burn inside her chest. A coughing fit caused her to slow her pace but it was the loose chunk of pavement that sent her tripping forward, face first onto the solid ground below. Knocked out cold.

**_As always, please review and let me know what you think :) I love reading reviews!_**

_**Thanks for reading and stay tuned. The story has barely even begun!**_

___**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note: First off, sorry for this chapter being so long. I actually had more planned for it, but after realizing it was almost 4,000 words, I decided to end it where I did and shift the rest onto Chapter 4. Let me know in your reviews whether you prefer short chapters or long chapters. There's quite a bit of dialogue though, so it reads quickly :) Enjoy!**_

Chapter 3

With a deep breath in and a soft sigh out, Hermione's eyes fluttered open slowly. Her eyes felt so heavy; she must have slept through the whole night and half the morning. A hand flew up to her forehead as the reality of the throbbing ache traveling through her head quickly came to her. _'Ugh…what happened?'_ Squinting as her eyes adjusted to the light, the room around her gradually came into focus. It was unfamiliar and although the cold décor wasn't particularly bothersome, it wasn't as comfortable as her own room at home. She glanced around and noticed a door adjacent to the oversized wardrobe along the opposite wall. Eager to see where exactly she was, Hermione pushed herself to the edge of the bed and stood-perhaps a little too quickly. The blood rushed straight to her head and she could feel it pounding away within the large lump just beneath her hairline. The room started spinning and she had to plant a hand back on the bed to remain on her feet. _'I can't go anywhere…not like this. I just need to rest…'_ Carefully, she eased herself back down on the fluffy bed sheets, not bothering to get under the blankets, and drifted back to sleep.

_" 'Mione…" He called quietly._

_ "Go to sleep, Ron. It's late." She whispered back._

_ "But 'Mione, this is important." He pressed, reaching up to grab her hand._

_ Hermione rolled over in her bed to face Ron, who was lying on the floor next to her. The Weasleys were nice enough to let Hermione stay with them but they weren't naïve enough to let them sleep in the same room together unsupervised. Harry was sleeping in the next bed over, with Ron lying on the floor between them. It wasn't their usual sleeping arrangements but with how horribly Hermione had been sleeping the last few nights, Ron wanted to be there to help her through her nightmares. She insisted that she was fine and that all he was doing was giving himself a sore back by sleeping on the floor, but there was no convincing him after the way she woke up screaming the night before. He wouldn't leave her side; he swore it to her and she believed him._

_ Hermione dropped her arm down to the floor and felt his thumb gently brush over the back of her hand. "What is it?"_

_ "I love you." It made her smile, seeing the way the corners of his mouth flicked upward and his eyes lit up as he told her how he felt. Ever since the war had ended, their relationship seemed to have blossomed overnight. Between the coo's of lovebird chit-chat and the goo-goo-eyed glances they shared every day, an outsider would assume they'd been together for years. In a way, they had._

_ The small bags under her eyes creased into full-view as her smile rose her cheeks higher on her face. "I love you too, Ron. Now go to sleep or I'll never be able to wake you up before noon tomorrow." She teased but it was true. Even Harry was beginning to look tired after being woken up in the middle of the night by Hermione's cries. It was taking a toll on everyone and Hermione couldn't help but feel guilty for it. The war was over. Harry had dealt with night terrors and even worse for years. Now that Voldemort was gone, he shouldn't need to worry about getting a restful night's sleep, and yet she seemed to wake the whole house up almost every night. She turned over on the bed and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders as the first tear ran down the curve of her cheek. It soaked into the soft surface of her pillow and she knew what she needed to do._

_ She waited until Ron and Harry were asleep before she slipped out of bed and pulled her small handbag from under her pillow. It had been packed the day before and now all she needed to do was get up the nerve to leave. As she reached the door, she tapped her wand on her nightdress and it transformed into a set a casual muggle clothes. Her hand reached for the doorknob but she found herself standing there, frozen, as her mind raced with the thought of what she was about to do. Her eyes made their way back to the floor beside her bed. The frame was blocking her view of Ron's face but she could see his feet sticking out from between the two beds and she felt her eyes water uncontrollably again. If she stayed a moment longer, she knew she wouldn't go. She couldn't. So she left and she left quickly. She could have sworn she saw their bedroom light flicker on just as she apparated from the field surrounding the burrow, but she wasn't certain. In all honesty, she didn't want to know._

Hermione's face scrunched up in her sleep as the memory of that night brought an ache deep down in her chest to the surface. She dreamt of him often while at home, except he was usually bleeding out in her arms, or being killed by a death eater during that final war at Hogwarts. This was the first time she had dreamt of the night she left him and she wasn't sure which was worse; her nightmares or her memories. Before long, her mind shifted to something more recent, but it wouldn't leave the thought of Ron alone.

_" 'Mione…please." His voice sounded so strained, so painful, and she knew he was hurt. It was beginning to get dark and she was terrified. Terrified of returning to the wizarding world, of explaining to the Weasley's why she left and worried them all those two years ago. She didn't know exactly how much she had hurt Ron, but she knew his family were the ones that had to deal with that burden. How would she ever repay them? How could they ever forgive her? They couldn't; they wouldn't. She couldn't go back._

_ "Please…" As she stared at the blood staining the front of his shirt, her thoughts made her forget everything around her. Ron was lying on the ground beside her, bleeding profusely from the large gash above his hip. Because of her. She had tried to get away from him, leave him again, and he went after her. She apparated in a state of panic, not realizing Ron had tagged along in the last minute. Now there he was, sprawled out in front of her, slowly leaking a pool of his own crimson rain and all she could think to do was run. Every time he called her name, every time she looked down at the blood, her mind flashed with images from the past. Quick, raw memories filled her head and as she tried to push them away, more flooded into her. That time in the wood with Harry…Ron being splinched and Hermione having to heal him…and the blood that covered her hands. There was so much blood then and as her eyes began to focus on the present, there was so much blood now. Ron held her hand in his and as he tried to pull himself towards her, she couldn't take her eyes off his wound. It was worse, so much worse than the shoulder gash she had healed before. She couldn't take it. She couldn't stand to see the blood, smell it so close to her, and as the flashbacks continued, they began to split and transform. One moment she was back in the woods with Harry and Ron, and the next they were at Hogwarts-or what was left of Hogwarts, fighting death eaters and dragging their dead comrades to safety to be properly buried later. Her heart pounded as each snippet became worse than the one before it, until finally his face was hurled directly in front of her. His cold red eyes and his sharp row of teeth; his wand raised as the curse began to roll off his tongue, pointed directly at her. 'Avada…'_

"No!" She was screaming. She didn't realize she was screaming, but she knew someone was. It was only when she felt her body shaking violently that she noticed it was her own mouth that the noise was coming from. She coughed roughly as she tried to quickly choke the last of her yell back down her throat. Her head was pounding but as she felt a pair of firm hands on her upper arms, her head was the least of her concerns. She opened her eyes and pushed away her attacker, scratching at his face with all her might. "Get away from me!"

The man standing over her let go of her arms, and backed away with his hands on his face. He groaned and cursed from behind his palms before lowering them to only cover the claw marks on his lower cheek. "If I knew you'd be such a handful, I wouldn't have hesitated to keep you sedated with a sleeping potion." His drawl had an underlying tone of superiority that she recognized all too quickly. The long, platinum blonde hair, his perfect attire without a single thread out of place; it could only be Lucius Malfoy. The man had a way of exuding such hatred with a mere glance of his icy blue eyes, and she could feel it as he stared at her from a few feet away.

"What are _you _doing here?" It was all she could think to say. The last thing she knew, she had been fast asleep, resting the bump on her head, and then he was grabbing her. Him, of all people, and it sickened her.

With a cocky raise of one eyebrow and his chin tilted upward, he replied, "I have every right to be here. You, on the other hand, are a guest in my estate and should behave as such." He rubbed away the growing soreness in his cheek and didn't bother to hide the disgust in his eyes. His jaw was stiff, as was his stance, and as his other hand rested comfortably on the head of his walking cane, it caught her eye.

She remembered the way his cane broke apart into two separate pieces. The cane itself had a hollow compartment which kept his wand hidden inside. She had seen it numerous different times, in the Department of Mysteries as he fought against her and her friends, as well as during the final battle when he used it to aid the Dark Lord in the war. A memory interrupted her vision as it burst into her mind. She was brought back to the ruins of Hogwarts, running down the destroyed corridors with Ron as they hurried to reach the center of the action. Their friends and family were all together, fighting to defend their school, their beliefs, and their lives. As they ran towards the main battlegrounds, Hermione saw a flash of bright light off to her left through a row a broken pillars. Lucius Malfoy had his wand out, pointed straight ahead as he propelled a defiant young Ravenclaw Prefect out of his way. He continued striding down the corridor as if nothing had happened, and yet Hermione couldn't help but wonder if the young man was even conscious as he lay crumbled against the wall.

As the memory faded away and her eyes returned to the present wizard in front of her, she realized how badly this situation could end. Immediately her hand reached out to the bedside table next to her, but it landed on the bare surface with a thud. _'My wand…'_ She made a quick glance over the bed, hoping with all she had that it was somehow tangled up in the bed sheets. It wasn't. She turned back to Lucius, fists clenched at her sides, and demanded loudly, "Where is my wand?" The arrogant wizard carelessly shrugged his shoulders as his only response. "What have you done with my wand!" If he didn't have his own wand so readily available to him, Hermione would have charged him, tackled him to the ground and pummeled him with all her power, but he did have his wand. He had the upper hand and Hermione felt nothing but automatically threatened.

"Despite what you may believe, I have done absolutely nothing with your wand." His pompous tone angered her and part of him enjoyed it. He too noted the clear advantage he had in his own wand, and used the opportunity to pass his cane from one hand to the other, watching her eyes follow it along the way.

"I don't believe you." She spat and continued to shift her view from his face to his cane, then back up to his face.

His eyebrow rose as his expression grew blank. "I don't care what you believe. When I found you, there was no wand."

She cut him off before he could say another word. "You're a liar! I want my wand!" His lips curled back in disgust at her attack and she watched as his hand tightened over the serpent head of his cane. Hermione drew in a quick breath and braced herself for the hex she was sure to receive.

But it never came. Instead, his demeanor calmed and he dipped his head forward slightly, lowering his voice to a deep, warning grumble. "Don't speak of things you do not know, _little girl_." He wanted to say more, wanted to tear her to pieces for even speaking to him with such an inappropriate attitude. Yelling at him in his own home was one thing, but going so far as to call him a liar wasn't doing anything to tame his rising temper.

"I do know, Malfoy. Everyone knows! You're a liar and a coward, you and your whole family. If Voldemort were here, you'd still be chasing after him like the little puppy you are." Her words stung and she could tell when she said his name, the wizard before her winced slightly. She forced a triumphant smile and finished him off with, "Yapping at his feet for a few treats. Once a death eater, always a death eater."

It was taking his full control not to pull out his wand and hex the poor witch beyond oblivion, but that wasn't something he could do anymore. She was right, Voldemort was gone and he out of everyone was being watched. He could feel the eyes on him every time he stepped foot out of the manor. They were waiting for him to slip up, waiting for an excuse to send him away to Azkaban for good, and he'd be damned if he ever went back there. He couldn't survive it again. After a brief pause to collect himself, he took a single step forward and with a twisted smirk over his lips, he snarled, "Once a mudblood, always a pathetic," He drew out the syllables in the last word, paused, and continued with the same slow, mocking delivery, "sad, little mudblood."

That was it. The last straw and although Hermione prided herself on her level-head, she could feel her face flush as his words sunk deep into her. She had heard it all her life, particularly from his son, but to hear a full-grown wizard use such a term with her, in such a hateful way, left her blushing with both rage and embarrassment. The satisfied grin spreading over his face was like salt to an open wound and she knew she couldn't let him get the final word. "If I'm nothing but a mudblood, Malfoy, then why am I here? Why did you save me? I never imagined you of all people as a closeted blood-traitor."

The word 'blood-traitor' brought a crashing halt to his cocky smile and she could have sworn she saw a tiny twitch just below his left eye. Ignoring her accusation completely, he chose to only acknowledge her first question. "That is why I am here, instead of one of my house elves." He clicked his wand out of the cane and waved it gently through the air. A pair of chairs appeared, separated by an oversized, round table. "If you'd care to sit…" he began.

"I'd rather stand." She cut him off and crossed her arms, resting the backs of her calves against the bed frame behind her. If the bed wasn't there all this time, she knew the shaking in her knees would have given her away long ago. She was terrified and when he pulled out his wand, she felt her whole body tense.

He eyed her for a moment, as more of an annoyance than anything else, and cleared his throat. "Very well." With another wave of his wand, the table set vanished and he too crossed his arms after returning the wand to the safety of his cane. "Although I don't know why you were in Knockturn Alley after dark, when I saw you and recognized you as a friend of Potter, I knew I couldn't let the obvious opportunity pass." He paused and noted the vacant expression in her eyes. He explained, adding, "The opportunity to improve the status of my probation." Again, nothing. She didn't seem to understand a word he was telling her. "Is any of this getting through? I was told you were the brightest of your age but somehow I don't see it." Apparently he also couldn't give up the opportunity to take a cheap shot at something she valued most; her intelligence.

Hermione frowned. "I've been…on holiday. Haven't kept up with wizarding affairs." It was the best way she could explain it without really going into any specifics. Quickly bringing the subject of conversation back to him, she asked, "Probation?"

He shrugged, "Of sorts. After the war had ended the ministry declared any remaining members of the Dark Lord's side who wished to recant their loyalty and begin rehabilitation, could do so after a series of investigations, interviews, this and that." He waved his hand around in a circle and finished. "Jump through hoops so to speak, and we could have our freedom."

"They should have just gotten rid of you. I'm sure it'd save the ministry whatever time and money they've already wasted to _rehabilitating_ you." Hermione interrupted.

His mouth twisted up in a grimace at her suggestion and he tried his best not to end up in another bickering match with the young woman. She had a head injury after all; could he really bring himself to knock her out and pretend she simply hadn't woken up yet? Of course he could, but could he do so while on probation? Unfortunately not. "As I was saying, after all the trouble I've gone through to recover my reputation, I have been placed in a probationary period. A ministry official makes a house visit once a week, which is where you come in. He's scheduled to arrive this afternoon to check up on me and I'd like you to explain how you came to be a guest in my home."

Hermione replied with a small chuckle, "You'd like me to tell him how you kidnapped me in my weakened state and then verbally harassed me? Sure, I can do that."

Another disgusted look appeared on his face as he corrected her. "I don't recall anyone being kidnapped. If I hadn't have found you, you would have bled out right there on the road." He pointed at her forehead and added, "I even had one of my house elves bandage you up. That doesn't sound at all like kidnap to me."

"You only did it because you knew you would get something out of it. Otherwise I don't doubt you would have finished me off as soon as you found me." Although he knew Hermione probably wasn't wrong in her assumptions, he needed to get her to help him. He was about to speak when she continued sharply, "Besides, if I'm not kidnapped, that means I can leave anytime I want."

Lucius's eyes lit up with surprised agreement. "Of course. I never said you couldn't." He pointed to the door behind him. "Go out there, take the third left down the corridor, a quick right, and you should find your way to the entrance hall easily." Hermione creased her eyebrows downward as she listened to him explain the direction. It had to be a trap. She knew she most likely couldn't get far without getting that woozy feeling return to her head, but she was still hesitant. Cautiously, she dragged her feet along the smooth wooden flooring until she passed Malfoy and reached the door. Her hand fell on the handle just as he called back to her, "However… staying _would_ be to your benefit."

She knew he had something up his sleeve, but she couldn't see what it was. Sure, she wasn't in the best physical condition and would most likely pass out again if she tried to apparate anywhere, but at least she would be out of this manor and away from him his insulting glares and mocking. "And how is that?" she asked curiously.

"Well," he began. "As I said before, I don't know why you were in Knockturn Alley or how you came to be unconscious, however I do know that it's unusual for your kind-the Potter brigade, to travel alone, especially after dark." He didn't miss when Hermione swallowed hard, and he knew he was on the right track. "Now why would a young witch like yourself be running around Knockturn Alley, after dark, alone…unless she didn't want to be found?" Her jaw clenched and her eyes fell down to the floor between them. He knew he was right. "Ah, and there it is." He smiled confidently and took a step towards her, bringing her eyes back up to his with his movement. "You do this one, tiny, little thing for me, and you can go back to whatever rock you've been hiding under. No one will ever know you were here…"

"Except the ministry official," Hermione corrected.

He smiled and nodded, "Yes, except him. He's no threat. A recent transfer in from Bulgaria where he was regulating the ethical treatment of dragons. I doubt he'd even recognize you. What has it been? A year and a half?"

"Two years," Hermione answered dryly. She knew exactly down to the day how long it'd been since the war ended. It haunted her every night; how could she forget? Lucius nodded again and his face almost looked peaceful as he waited for her to decide. She could tell he was only putting on the friendly expression to get her to agree, but he really didn't need to. She couldn't let Harry and Ron, the rest of the Weasleys, find out she ran away not only once but twice. And this last time, the way she left Ron, how could she ever look them in the eyes again? _'Oh God…Ron…is he even alive? There was so much blood…I should have just stayed…'_ Her mind started to explode with guilt as she wondered what had happened last night. Lucius cleared his throat and she remembered that he was waiting for an answer. With great hesitation, she began a small nod and croaked out, "Alright."

_**What do you think? Will Hermione keep her word? Will Lucius keep his? You'll have to wait and see! I'm working on the next chapter as we speak/type, so stay tuned!**_

___**As always, I love reading reviews, so don't be shy :) Thanks for reading.**_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Note: Sorry for the delay but I was one of the people who couldn't log in to the site for the past day. I'd like to reassure anyone who's been reading this fanfic due to the M rating. The rating will be justified in later chapters. ;)**_

Chapter 4

Hermione sat uncomfortably in her large, heavily-cushioned armchair. It was deep green, which matched the area rug and the surrounding furniture in the room. The legs were a dark wooden material, though she couldn't place the specific type. Lucius sat in an identical chair across from her with one leg crossed over the other, his left ankle meeting his right knee. They hadn't spoken since they arrived in the sitting room five minutes ago; to describe the atmosphere as awkward was the understatement of the year. A large brass grandfather clock in the corner of the room struck four and Hermione decided an attempt at small talk was better than sitting in silence. "How long does this ministry official usually stay?"

Lucius brought a hand up to his chin and rested his jawline atop his fingertips. "Anywhere from half an hour to four or five hours." Hermione's awed expression caught his attention and he elaborated. "It depends on what he finds-if he finds anything at all."

Although she hadn't forgotten who exactly she was speaking with, Hermione found it hard to believe a ministry official would spend so much time on a probationary visit. "What would he find? It's not as though you keep people prisoner in a dungeon or anything. Oh wait…" Hermione pretended to be surprised at her realization. She was, of course, referring to the time she, Harry, and Ron were kept locked in his basement with Griphook, Luna, and Mr. Ollivander. That was, until Bellatrix decided to torture Hermione. The young witch looked down at the sleeve covering her forearm. She still wore the scar, but tried to keep it covered as much as possible. Hermione glared at Malfoy.

He recognized her meaning right away. "If you recall, it was my darling sister-in-law who bothered with you. All I was concerned with was the Potter boy." Before Hermione could argue against him, he answered her initial question. "Artifacts mainly; items of suspected dark magic, things of that nature. I merely call them family heirlooms but apparently that's where he and I see differently." Lucius shrugged just as there was a knock on the door off in the distance. A moment later a large, hairy man was guided in by a house elf. He had a thick beard, trimmed close to the skin, but it was so dark and full that no light had any chance of getting through. Lucius stood from his seat and pressed his hands together into the small of his back.

"Lucius." The man's greeting was short and to the point.

"Alastor." Lucius reply quickly before reaching out for Hermione's hand. When she didn't take his, he shifted it into more of a wave in her direction. "I'd like you to meet a guest of mine. Miss Gra-,"

"Hermione Granger." As he cut off Lucius, beating him to the punch, both Hermione and Lucius looked shocked. The ministry official stepped towards her and shook her hands delicately in his own oversized paws. "It's a pleasure. I've heard so much about you."

"You have?" Hermione asked softly, the realization that her end of the bargain was about to be shattered to pieces.

"Well, no." The man admitted and Hermione relaxed slightly. "Lucius has a bit of a tight-lip when it comes to acquaintances I'm afraid, but I've seen your picture in a file somewhere." He glanced at Malfoy, who hadn't shifted in his stance but simply nodded. "So, will you be staying long? I'd hate to intrude more than I already have but official ministry business comes first. You understand." He lifted a small briefcase with the ministry's crest engraved in the center.

Hermione smiled and stood from her chair. "Actually, I was just leaving."

Before she could take a step away from her chair, Lucius hurried towards her. "Oh, don't be so silly, my dear. After such trauma you've been through?" He motioned towards the bandage on her head and eased her back into the chair. She glared up at him as he stared at her. She thought of bursting back up, exclaiming that she was not simply a house guest and that she was leaving, but she honestly couldn't guarantee how far she would get. Just standing from her seat so quickly had made her woozy. All she had to do was keep her end of the bargain and then she could leave at her own pace. When Lucius was content that she wasn't going to bolt, he explained his meaning to the man. "You see, Alastor, Miss Granger had a bit of an accident last night. And well, I suppose she can explain it better than I can. Hermione?"

It was the first time she'd heard him use her first name and it sounded all wrong. She looked back at the ministry official and noticed he was now staring at her, waiting to hear what had happened. She took a deep breath and began the story. "I don't remember what happened. I suppose it's the bump on my head." She lied. She did remember what happened. She remembered the way Ron kept calling for her as she ran away from him, left him bleeding on the empty night's street, with no one around to help him. Another deep breath to push back the threat of any persistent tears and she was able to continue. "I had fallen and hit my head. When I woke up, I learned that Mr. Malfoy had been _kind enough_," she shot a harsh glance in his direction and finished her sentence, "to assist me in my weakened state."

"Well, that's wonderful. Bravo to you, Lucius." Alastor clapped a hand on Malfoy shoulder and the two men exchanged a smile.

"Yes, I do believe if I hadn't found her when I did, the poor girl may not be here talking with us today." Hermione rolled her eyes as Lucius buttered up the story in his favor. If he kept any more of it up, she was sure to hurl on his beautiful green area rug.

Sending a cautionary glare in Lucius' direction, Hermione stood from her chair again, slower this time. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I'm afraid I'll have to leave this lovely affair earlier than expected. I'm beginning to feel a headache coming on and I'd rather nip it in the butt before it gets worse." She pressed her fingertips to the bandage on her forehead gently and smiled at the ministry worker. "Alastor, was it? It was very nice to meet yo-,"

"Have you had it looked at?" The man asked, staring at her forehead.

"I-excuse me?" Hermione hesitated as her eyes veered off to see Lucius standing quietly to the side. _'Sure…__** Now**__, you have nothing to say. You were all too eager to help me along with the story of your amazing heroics!' _Hermione brushed off the man's concerns and smiled again, with as much friendliness as she could muster. "Oh, no, I'm fine. Just a little bump. Nothing to be concerned with."

The man looked from Hermione to Lucius and asked, "But my dear girl, you said this happened last night? And it's still bleeding so much?" Hermione felt the bandage one more time and as she pulled her hand away, she noticed little red smudges on her fingertips. She was bleeding through the bandage.

"I'm fine, really. Just a good night's rest and I'll be jumping around by morning." She was almost pleading with the ministry man at this point to just drop the subject.

But he wouldn't let up. "I'm sorry, but as a ministry official I can't leave you in this state with a clear conscious." He pointed to her forehead and warned, "That is how witches and wizards die in their sleep." He turned to Malfoy and nodded confidently, "Lucius, you understand my concerns of course, no offense meant to your healing abilities."

To Hermione's surprise, Lucius nodded in return and even went as far as to assist. "I understand, Alastor. I've only had my house elves clean the wound and bandage it. Perhaps she should see someone more experienced with head injuries."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. He had gotten what he wanted from her and now he was done. He was back to playing goody-goody for the ministry. She would have stormed out, woozy head or not, but she had this man standing in her way. As he brought his position with the ministry into the argument, Hermione knew she wasn't getting out of this room unless she agreed to get her head looked at. With one last cold glare at the blonde wizard, Hermione gave in to the ministry official's request. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to simply get a second opinion."

xxx

After being whisked away to St. Mungo's hospital with the aid of Alastor, and waiting half an hour in a crowded room filled with coughing, disfigured, and overall disgustingly ill individuals, Hermione was finally given a bed in a quiet room. One young trainee-healer visited her twice; first to ask some routine questions, and the second time to inform her that she would need to stay overnight for observations. Hermione was less than pleased. "I can't stay here. I have somewhere to be." She lied.

"Not with that head injury." The nurse replied. She picked up her clipboard and scribbled down a quick note before grabbing a small vial from the potion cabinet down the hall. "Drink this."

"Hermione accepted the vial but hesitated to down the liquid. "What is it?"

The trainee-healer gave her a stern look, but answered her question. "It's a dreamless sleeping potion. Judging by the bags under your eyes and your level of agitation, you haven't had a restful night in quite a long time. It'll do you and that head of yours well, trust me." After eyeing the contents of the vial for a moment, Hermione slipped off the cap and drank it. It tasted less than pleasant but wasn't as horrible as a polyjuice potion. She handed the empty vial back to the trainee-healer and thanked her. "You're welcome. I'll be back in a few hours to check in on you, though you'll most likely be fast asleep by then." The young healer lowered the lights with a flick of her wand before leaving the room. "Good night!"

xxx

As she woke up, she could feel a drastic difference in her head. There was no pounding, no throbbing, and when she pressed her fingers against the bandage, they came away dry. Still, she sat up slowly and slid off the bed carefully. The last thing she needed was to feel that awful woozy feeling again. Her room was still darkened but as if alerted by some magical sensor, the same young healer-in-training entered her room before she could go any further than the side of the bed. "Good morning! You look terrific!" She hurried over to the windows and pulled the heavy shades apart, letting in the morning sunlight. The room lit up and as it did, Hermione was finally able to see why her room felt so much more crowded than it did the day before. Scattered all over, on top of chairs and dressers, even littered around the ends of her bed frame, were flowers and cards. A few stuffed bears sat among the brightly colored flowers and Hermione's heart stopped. The young aid noticed her stillness as she stared at all the gifts and said cheerfully, "Amazing, isn't it? As soon as the morning's copy of the daily prophet arrived, within half an hour all this started rolling in. Looks like there's a lot of people wishing you a speedy recovery!"

She smiled happily at Hermione but Hermione wasn't smiling at all. She stood with her eyes darting all around the room before finally managing to choke out, "Who…where did…" She couldn't finish her thought with so many others racing through her freshly-healed head. Finally, she forced out an audible reply. "Daily Prophet?"

"Yeah!" The healer grinned as her head bobbed up and down excitedly. After shuffling through a stack of cards and letters, she pulled a slightly crinkled copy of the Daily Prophet off one of the chairs. "You didn't make the front page, but there's a whole article on the third page!" She handed the newspaper to Hermione who eagerly snatched it from her hands. "Well, not only you. Mr. Malfoy is mainly who it mentions, but they've got your picture blown up nice and big." Hermione was too busy skimming over the article to listen to what the healer was saying. "And I have to admit, it's an awfully great picture of you too! Not too recent, but still…you look beautiful!" Hermione's eyes darted to the picture she was going on about. It was from years ago. Hermione's image was beaming up at her from the page, fully dressed in her Hogwarts robes. It was from the last year she attended classes. _'Those were happier times…' _she thought, staring down at how bright and optimistic her younger self looked.

_'If I'm in the paper, that means everyone knows I'm alive…and that I'm __**here!**__ I need to get out of here!'_ The reality of her situation suddenly became extremely alarming. If everyone knew where she was, and so many people sent all these gifts, what would stop them from visiting her? What would stop them from trying to keep her in the wizarding world? Most importantly, what would Harry say when he sees her alive and well when his best friend had been left to die only nights ago. _'Ron…'_ The thought of him triggered a curiosity in her. What if he had died from his apparation wound that night? He could have been healed if someone found him, but there was no one around. She quickly looked back at the healer and asked, "Has Ronald Weasley been admitted recently?"

The healer gave a strained look and tilted her head to the side apologetically. "Sorry hon, all patient information is strictly confidential around here." Hermione had to try hard to hold back her burst of laughter. _'Confidential…right! That's why my face is planted big as a blimp in the morning paper!'_ The healer straightened a bear that had flopped over while she pulled out the copy of the Daily Prophet and offered with a hopeful tone, "Are you family? I could look it up for you if you're a member of his immediate family."

Hermione looked back down at her picture in the paper and watched it transform into a picture of Lucius Malfoy. He was gleaming with his usual essence of pride and extraordinary confidence. The picture shifted to his mug shot from years ago when he was sent to Azkaban. It quickly morphed back to his more respectable image, before rotating back to Hermione's Hogwarts picture. Hermione snapped the pages shut and answered firmly, "No. I'm not family. I'm…" She tried to find the words for what exactly she was. She didn't want to say she was an ex-girlfriend, but she certainly wasn't a current girlfriend. She hadn't seen Ron for two years aside from the other night, and she doubted she could really call herself a friend anymore. She answered softly, "…nothing."

"Well, maybe he'll stop by during visiting hours. Then you'll know if he was admitted or not." Again, the bubbly healer in training smiled brightly at her.

"Visiting hours…" Hermione repeated as panic set in. What if Harry and Ron were waiting downstairs right this moment? What if Mrs. Weasley was waiting to give her a piece of her mind? She had left the woman's youngest son to bleed to death and what did she have to explain herself with? 'Sorry Molly but I was just afraid he was going to take me back with him and love me to pieces?' That would go over swimmingly! The reality was, she was scared. She was afraid of dealing with what she had done those years ago, the way she left without a word, and she was terrified to return. The guilt of how badly she was dealing with her nightmares, matched with the fact that she wasn't happy. The war was over, Voldemort was gone, and she could live the rest of her life peacefully with Ron and Harry, Ginny and the rest of the Weasleys, but that wasn't how it turned out to be. Even with Voldemort gone, she couldn't shake the feeling that she wasn't safe. The war wasn't over in her mind and when she fell asleep, she was brought right back to the battlegrounds where so many of her friends had lost their lives. How could she explain all that rationally? She couldn't because what she was experiencing, what she was feeling, wasn't at all rational. "When do visiting hours begin?"

The trainee healer tugged on her bed sheets before laying the blanket back down smoothly on top. "Ten o'clock." She glanced down at her watch and added pleasantly, "You've got half an hour to freshen up if you'd like. The bathroom's right through there." She motioned towards a door but Hermione ignored it.

"No, I need to check out. I was only required to stay for overnight observation?" Hermione asked quickly and the young witch nodded hesitantly. "So I can leave?"

The magical nurse uncomfortably replied, "Well, yes, but if you wait, we can get all this packed up for you."

Hermione was out the door before the healer could protest. She yelled over her shoulder, "Don't bother. Give it to the children's ward."

xxx

It was a miracle that there happened to be a stairway towards the back of the hospital. She hadn't been in St. Mungo's too often, but she could have sworn most magically-owned buildings didn't bother having such muggle things. She snuck out the back and started down a random sidewalk. Without a clue as to where to go, and no wand to aid her, her only option was to keep walking until a plan popped into her head. She needed to go somewhere that she wouldn't be easily recognized. Diagon Alley was out, and so was Hogwarts. Anywhere that any respectable wizard would be, she had to completely avoid. That left only one place; Knockturn Alley. She vaguely remembered seeing an inn on the upper level of a rather shady eatery. _'But I don't have my wand,'_ she thought hopelessly. She knew she wouldn't be able to apparate without her wand and it was too far to travel on foot. She looked back at the wizarding hospital, then over at a large clock on the side of one of the neighboring buildings. There were only ten minutes before the visiting hours started. If Harry and the Weasleys were going to visit her, they'd be there already.

As far as she knew, a witch or wizard could use the floo network without a wand. St. Mungo had numerous different entries and exits as it was a quick way to transport severely injured patients to and from the hospital. She just needed to get back inside unnoticed. Hermione walked back to the hospital and tried the backdoor. _'Locked…of course!'_ She couldn't seem to get a break no matter how much she needed it. Slowly, she made her way around to the front of the building. There was a small crowd of unfamiliar witches and wizards waiting to visit their friends and family, but she didn't see any red hair or any lightning bolt scars. Still, she couldn't help but feel uneasy. _'Maybe they're not going to visit…I practically disappeared for two years. Ron said they thought I was dead. Maybe they're too angry to care that I'm in the hospital,'_ Hermione wondered as she walked up to the front doors, her head ducked behind a copy of yesterday's Daily Prophet she found lying on the ground. It would be her only cover and she prayed that it would work.

It got her past the crowd out front but as she walked inside, she was quickly stopped by a receptionist sitting at the large desk on the first floor. "Visiting hours are from ten to seven, but if you'd like to wait outside, we'll have someone let you know when you can see the patients." She barely looked at Hermione as she busily worked at her desk. Judging by the group of people already standing outside, the woman was probably sick of having to repeat the same thing over and over again.

"I just need to use the floo network. Is there one on this floor?" Hermione asked sweetly, still holding the newspaper over the lower half of her face. She stared down at the paper to look less suspicious and although the woman hesitated for a moment, it must have worked, because after a few seconds of awkward silence, the receptionist pointed down a hallway to the left. "Thank you."

Hermione moved quickly down the hall until she spotted the wide opening, framed with a mantle much like a fireplace, encasing the raging green flames. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw it and knew it would only be a matter of seconds before she could hide away in Knockturn Alley, get a room at that seedy inn, and finally be out of the public eye. She grabbed a handful of the magical dust from the cauldron next to the mantle and rose it high above the flames. Just as she was about to drop the dust and yell out her destination, she spotted him. His jet black hair, skinny frame, and Ginny hanging on his arm; Harry. He was staring directly at her, so long that Ginny too looked to see what caught his attention. Hermione's eyes darted from Harry to Ginny quickly before she hurled the powder to the ground and yelled out "Knockturn Alley!" Her last images of St. Mungo's was of Harry running towards her, shouting something with such determination, but the roar of the green flames around her drowned out his voice, and she was gone.

**_Thanks for reading, and I really enjoy seeing your reviews! I'm currently working on Chapter 5, so as long as the site doesn't glitch on me again, it should be up later tonight/tomorrow. Enjoy!_**

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Author's Notes: **__**Let me know what you think in the reviews!**_

Chapter 5

As she appeared in Knockturn Alley, landing firmly between two buildings, Hermione knew she needed to hurry. Although Knockturn Alley wasn't nearly as busy as Diagon Alley, there were still bound to be enough people at this time of day. The shops would all be open and with her face nearly covering half of page three in the Daily Prophet, she would be easily recognizable to anyone who had read the article. Checking that the coast was clear, she exploded from her hiding spot and walked swiftly with her head down as low as she could keep it without tripping over her own feet. Hermione tried to remember where exactly the inn was located, but just as she hurried past a row of store fronts, her face collided directly into someone's chest. Shaken but not on the ground, she steadied her feet and began to apologize, when she looked at who she ran into. "You!"

The tall, blonde wizard stood outside the shop's entry and dusted off his long, black cloak. "Don't you watch where you're going or do muggles run into one another on a regular basis?" He mumbled before straightening his shirt collar.

"So much for you keeping your end of the deal! Have you seen the Daily Prophet? If my picture were any bigger, it'd be hanging off the page!" Although her temper had risen as she saw him, she tried her best to keep her voice to a hushed tone. The last thing she wanted was even more attention.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow and replied coarsely, "In case you hadn't noticed, my oh-so-glamorous detainee photograph was also featured. I had no influence in that article at all." Hermione considered his words but still retained her piercing glare. It was true that a man with as much pride as Lucius Malfoy wouldn't be caught dead allowing a picture like that to be published. Although he couldn't exactly stop the freedom of the press, his money could certainly cause for some heavy influence.

Hermione shrugged and pushed past Lucius, making it a point to hit his shoulder as hard as possible with her own. She called over her shoulder, "It doesn't matter. You said Alastor wouldn't even know me. Do you have any idea how difficult it was for me to even get here without my wand? Without anyone seeing me?" She was fuming but she just kept walking. She needed to find that inn before the alley got more crowded, and this conversation with Lucius was only distracting her.

Lucius strode behind her casually, somehow keeping up with her quickening pace, and answered, "I imagine it wasn't extremely easy, however you do have me curious. Why would you choose Knockturn Alley of all places to go? Would you not be better suited with Potter and all his little friends?" Hermione kept walking, ignoring his presence behind her and tried to familiarize herself with the layout of the stores around them. She hadn't been anyone near Knockturn Alley in so long and although it didn't particularly change too drastically, the few times she had visited this lowly part of Diagon Alley was at night. Everything looked so different during the day. She thought she saw an old street sign that she recognized, when she heard Lucius again behind her. "Where are you going?"

His tone wasn't as sharp as it usually was, but Hermione was convinced that the man was incapable of sounding friendly. She swung her head around and snapped, "That's none of your business!" She pounded with her feet at the ground as she headed towards the street sign, when she noticed Lucius was still walking behind her. "Why are you following me?"

"I'd like you to have a drink with me." He answered evenly.

It caught her off guard and she stopped abruptly. "You what?" She blurted out. "Why on earth would I ever have a drink with you?" She quickly glanced around at the sunlight bouncing off the shops' windows and added, "Besides, it's not even noon."

Malfoy took note of how early in the day it was and tried again. "Lunch then."

Hermione rolled her eyes, turned around and marched away. She didn't have to check to know Lucius was still following her. As they approached the street sign at the corner, Hermione stopped again and repeated, "Why are you following me?"

It was obvious that Lucius was beginning to get tired of their game of cat and mouse. "I'd like to treat you to lunch." His words sounded innocent enough but his eyes were saying something completely different, and Hermione noticed. He was getting impatient and it showed. Hermione paused a moment to examine his face before slowly shaking her head, as if she was communicating with a mentally impaired individual. Lucius clenched his jaw and lowered his voice, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch your…" He eyed her up and down with a look that only resembled nausea, and finished, "…disgusting back."

"As flattering as you've made that sound, I'm not going anywhere with you unless you give me a logical reason _why_." She pressed.

Lucius grit his teeth into a disturbingly frustrated smile, obviously forced, and muttered just loud enough for her to hear, "I may know where your wand is." His grin turned into a smirk as he saw her reaction. There's no denying he's enjoying the power shift between them, but for a moment he almost thinks she's still going to refuse.

Then she spoke. "Where are we going?" It too was forced, almost painfully so, but as the question left her lips, she knew she didn't want to hear the answer.

Grabbing her by the back of her elbow, he replied, "A lovely little pub in Diagon Alley. I believe you're familiar with it; The Leaky Cauldron." Hermione took a quick breath inward as her heart began to race. It was nearly lunch time. The Leaky Cauldron would be packed this time of day. What on earth was he thinking bringing her there? Then he said it. "Not at all my sort of taste in dining, however it is surprisingly close to the Daily Prophet offices." Before she could pull away, or argue against it, he had apparated them right in the middle of Diagon Alley.

Hermione glanced around wildly to get her bearings. Sure enough, he had transported them to the busiest spot she could think of. Right at the beginning of Diagon Alley and so incredibly close to the Daily Prophet's home base, stood Hermione Granger and Lucius Malfoy, together. As Lucius looked around casually, he noticed a small group of reporters standing outside the Daily Prophet's building. He tilted his head down towards Hermione's ear— to which she flinched instinctively— and whispered harshly, "Smile for the cameras."

Before long one of the reporters noticed the odd pair standing together and rushed over. The others followed with their cameras and enchanted notepads in toe. "Mr. Malfoy! What a surprise. Could we get a picture of the two of you? Miss Granger?" Before anyone really gave a definite answer, Hermione saw a bright flash in front of her, leaving stars floating across her vision.

"Of course." Lucius replied, placing his hand loosely around Hermione's lower back. He wasn't touching her any more than was needed, but to the untrained eye, the pair looked to be friendly with one another. Hermione wasn't smiling, until Malfoy mumbled softly from behind his smiling lips, "Your wand."

She hated him for it, for using her like a prop, for sticking her directly in front of the reporters when she had been trying her hardest not to be noticed. It took a moment, and didn't look at all like her natural smile, but eventually a semi-pleasant expression found its way onto her face. The cameras seemed to go wild, snapping picture after picture until she was sure she would go blind. She suddenly realized why Harry hated the press so much. They take and take, yet still want more. Just as she was beginning to feel her cheeks tighten from all the strained false-grins, she heard one of the cameramen call out "Give us a kiss!" The others around him agreed happily, even cheering Lucius and Hermione on, as they demanded what would be a front-page-photo.

Hermione's smile fell as she shifted away from Malfoy. He too lowered his arm back down to his side and answered coolly, "Sorry to disappoint, but Miss Granger and I are only meeting over lunch as friends." She didn't expect him to step in. She thought for sure he would just stand back as he did the other night when Alastor demanded she go to the hospital, but as she realized who she was talking about, she knew the thought of kissing a mudblood repulsed him even more than it disgusted her to think of kissing a Malfoy. Thankful of his response, Hermione beamed at the reporters one last time, before she felt Lucius's hand land on her back again. "It was a pleasure gents, but I'm afraid we'll need to be going now. I hear the Leaky Cauldron gets busy this time of day and we'd hate to miss a table." The crowd of cameramen and newsmen boo'ed and aw'ed, but Lucius only grinned as he turned away and guided Hermione to the eatery.

As they walked inside, Hermione noted the way he scrunched up his nose, most likely at the rustic atmosphere, and how quickly his happy demeanor vanished. She pointed out an empty table in the far back corner and they sat down. A waitress appeared but was quickly dismissed with a handful of gold coins that Lucius seemed to pull out from some hidden pocket. When the woman left, Lucius quietly produced his wand and Hermione sensed a magical film then separated them from the rest of the Leaky Cauldron's occupants. "Not complete agony, now was it?"

He was referring to the swarm of cameras pressed into her face only moments ago, but she ignored him and got straight to the point. "My wand. Where is it?" It didn't take long for her to notice a number of different people watching them from around the room, and she was thankful for the soundproof barrier Lucius had set up. If she had to pretend to be pleasant with him for another instant, she was likely to burst into a mental fit.

He raised an eyebrow at her bluntness, but in all honesty found it appealing. "After the war, there were rumors of an underground wand market. Unidentified wands claimed in either…_unsavory,_" he chose his wording very carefully as he explained, "or otherwise inappropriate manners, could be sold at the right price, to those…_in need_ of such wands."

"Death eaters," Hermione aided, feeling no need to sugarcoat the facts. Lucius may be on probation, but she was not.

Lucius inclined his head in silent agreement. "Among other individuals." Hermione rolled her eyes slightly, knowing the main, if not only clientele needing such a black market service were closeted death eaters who somehow managed to survive the war with a semi-clean name. "I happen to have information of where to find the sellers and—,"

"Of course you do." Hermione interjected.

He was not amused and the way his still eyes pierced through her made his sentiment well-known. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. "It behooves you to show some respect. I don't _need_ to help you."

"Then why are you? It doesn't matter to you if I get my wand back or not. In fact, you'd probably enjoy it if I never got it back at all." Her words were spiteful and though it was unintentional, she bumped the table roughly as she reacted less but calmly. The stress of all the press, being thrown back into the wizarding world over night, and now having to deal with the likes of Lucius Malfoy was taking its toll on her normally pleasant demeanor.

Malfoy pointed at the Leaky Cauldron's front door and replied, "Where do you suppose all those photos will end up tomorrow morning? Not in the rubbish bin, I can assure you of that. I'd be shocked if we don't make the front page, and once that happens, I'll be done all the quicker with this ridiculous probation. As I've said, you continue to help me and I'll return the favor." His eyes darkened and he leaned his forearms on the table between them as he pressed his face closer to her. With his voice lowered to a steady growl and his mouth twisted into a sick grin, Lucius announced, "Without me, you have no chance of finding your wand, and let's assume you do somehow manage it on your own, what makes you think I won't purchase it myself just for the sheer pleasure of snapping it in two?" If looks could kill, Hermione's expression could be considered a nuclear bomb. Her lips pressed tightly together as her hands balled into fists, but Lucius warned her softly, "Don't push me, Miss Granger. I have absolutely _nothing_ left to lose and _everything_ to gain."

There was a short, yet intense stare-off before Hermione finally asked, "So where is this black market wand-seller located? Knockturn Alley, right?"

"Surprisingly, no." Lucius corrected. "If the rumors are accurate, the seller is right on the outskirts of London. The location itself is a bit hard to find, for obvious enough reasons, however if you know the right people, the information can be found fairly easily." He was boasting and if they were in any other situation, it would have bothered Hermione, but considering they were discussing his ability to find her wand, she didn't mind listening to his cocky tone for once.

"Great. We'll go tonight. That should give you enough time to get all the facts down." Hermione stood from the table and suddenly felt their protective little bubble burst around them.

Lucius met her stance and picked up his cane that he kept hanging off the back of his seat. "You expect me to not already have plans for a Saturday night?" His eyes floated over her as his lips curled as if smelling a horrid stench. "So pretentious…" Hermione chewed at the inside of her cheek and tried to hide her slight embarrassment. She hadn't even remembered what day it was, and certainly didn't even consider Lucius Malfoy's social calendar. He lifted his chin and looked down his nose at her. "Tomorrow night. Where would you like to meet?"

Hermione thought for a moment. She had planned on staying at the inn within Knockturn Alley, however with their most recent media appearance, Hermione knew any chance of her hiding away unnoticed was non-existent. She shrugged. "Here I guess. I'll grab a room for the night." Lucius nodded and as he finally acknowledged the random handful of people eyeing them from various tables around the room, he held his arm out to her. She took it and they left their table together.

xxx

After reserving a room, Hermione began to wonder just how safe she would be at the Leaky Cauldron. Now that everyone knew where she was, what would stop Harry from dropping in? Without her wand she felt so vulnerable. As they walked to her room and noticed no one was around, they separated mutually as if both had some horribly contagious disease. Neither commented because neither truly noticed the awkward parting; after all, they weren't really friends. They stopped in front of her door and Hermione took in a deep breath. Although her pride was not as pronounced as his, the last thing she wanted to do was ask him for a favor, but she had no wand. She needed to bargain, so it wouldn't feel like a favor at all, but instead an even exchange between the two. "I have a proposition for you." One of Lucius's eyebrows rose slightly with interest; he was listening. "Tomorrow night, before we leave, we'll have a drink at a place of your choosing."

Leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed casually over his chest, he asked, "And what would be required of me in return?" He was cautious as he didn't see her as the negotiating type.

Hermione unlocked the door to her room and extended an arm, offering him entrance. When he stepped inside, she followed and responded softly, not sure how thin the walls were, "Place protective charms around the room. I don't want any visitors."

Lucius smiled and corrected her, "You mean any intruders." She shrugged and he turned back to the door with his wand raised. Slowly, he passed it over the surface before moving to encircle the frame. As he worked away at the charms, he asked, "Who are you running from exactly? Surely not Mr. Golden-boy Potter."

She walked over to the window and stared out, ignoring his teasing. "It's not important. I just need a good night's rest."

Floating his wand inches away from the walls, Lucius made his way around the room, setting silencing charms firmly in place. When he reached the window, he remarked, "You were screaming." He waved his wand over the glassy window's surface, strengthening its core and making it too sound-proof.

"Excuse me?" Hermione asked.

"I didn't attack you, in my home," he elaborated. "You were screaming before I even entered the room." Hermione turned silent, an unwarranted feeling of embarrassment washed over her and she didn't know what she was supposed to say. She certainly wasn't going to apologize for disturbing him, like she would if it had been Ron or Harry who heard her yelling in her sleep. Suddenly, he spoke again. "Do you always make so much noise in your sleep?"

It startled her. He was still busy with the protective charms and didn't seem to think his question was odd. It wouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary, if he wasn't Lucius Malfoy and she wasn't Hermione Granger, but they were themselves and a death eater like him wasn't supposed to show any interest in such things. Still, for some reason, Hermione answered. "Only since the war ended."

Again, to her surprise, he nodded and confirmed, "Makes fair enough sense."

"It does?" She asked. It was the first time she'd actually told someone what was haunting her and although she knew it would be easier to explain to a stranger than to Ron or her parents, she didn't expect that stranger to be Malfoy.

Another nod as he reached up to the top of the wall with his wand and mumbled, "Yes. War is traumatic, no matter which side you're on, winning or losing."

Hermione looked down at the people outside her window. As the afternoon approached, the street seemed to become more crowded and Hermione was thankful that she wasn't down there in the swarm of people. Her mind drifted off to Ron and Harry. Even Ginny didn't seem too bothered by the war. Hermione had overheard Mrs. Weasley crying one night and she could only guess it was over the loss of her son, but when she was around the family, she maintained her cheery appearance with such strength. Suddenly feeling less worthy than the rest of them, Hermione breathed, "Not Harry or Ron. They're absolutely fine, as if nothing happened."

Lucius was silent as he began wrapping up the charms. He was standing back by the door when he finally dropped his wand to his side. As he placed a hand on the doorknob, he looked back at her and insisted, "Everyone is affected in their own way, some more than others." His eyes seemed to change as he spoke to her. They softened and although his jaw was still clenched as always and his wand tucked sharply back into his walking cane, she could tell there was some truth in what he was saying. He opened the door and called back to her, "I'll have the barmaid send up a dreamless sleeping potion on my way out." Without another word, he closed the door behind him and she was alone.

Her polite upbringing told her that she should have thanked him, for both the charms and the potion, but as she thought of who he was, what he had done in the past, and the prejudices she knew he still held, the obligation to express her gratitude was simply not there.

_**A/N: What do you guys think? Will she get her wand back or is Lucius messing with her? What's the Daily Prophet going to say about the**__** unlikely friendship between them?**_ _**Keep an eye out for the next chapter to find out!**_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay with posting this chapter. It was a little difficult to write, but I think I'm finally satisfied with how it turned out. Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long to finish/post. Let me know what you think by writing a review. If you favor short chapters over long chapters, my apologizes as this one was really impossible to shorten, however it is sort of separated into three sections/scenes. :) Enjoy!**_

Chapter 6

Just as promised, within minutes of Malfoy leaving, Hermione heard a knock on the door. Although hesitant, she left the window to answer it. Carefully, she pressed her ear against the door's grainy surface and asked loudly, "Who is it?"

"Your sleeping draught, ma'am." It was a young female voice, sweet as a lullaby with a subtle wisp of innocence infused deep within. Hermione stood silently with her cheek against the door as she heard the uncomfortable shuffling of feet outside. "I—um, I was told to bring it to your room." Hermione's stillness caused a sense of uncertainty in the girl's voice, but she didn't hear her leave.

Convinced that it wasn't a trap, Hermione swallowed and unlocked the door. As she opened it, a girl no older than ten waited with a small drinking glass in her hands. "Thank you," Hermione reached for the potion and the girl gave it willingly, watching as Hermione sniffed the contents of the glass.

The girl's hair was a deep shade of brown, with tight curls all throughout. She had freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose and overflowing onto her rosy cheeks. They plumped softly as she smiled at Hermione's suspicious behavior. "It's a sleeping draught," she repeated. "My mother made it herself."

"Who is your mother?" Hermione asked gently.

"She works downstairs, serving drinks in the pub," answered the girl as she pointed down the stairs. "She sent me up to bring it to you, said a man ordered it for you." She looked down at the glass and offered, "I could get you a different one if that one's not good."

Hermione smiled but declined. "No, this one's fine. Thank you." She took a step back into the room but paused before closing the door. "How old are you?"

With another glowing smile, the little girl replied, "I'll be eleven in two weeks!" She looked so happy, so excited.

"Have you got your Hogwarts letter yet?" Hermione questioned. The girl shook her head and Hermione could tell by the way her smile dimmed that she was nervous about her first year in the ancient school. The older witch remembered that same feeling as she stepped on the Hogwarts Express for the first time, not knowing a single soul. She wasn't scared, but as she watched her parents wave goodbye from the platform, she felt her stomach twist into little knots. Hogwarts was where she had some of her greatest memories, but as she stared down at this young girl and wondered what Hogwarts was like now that they'd rebuilt and repaired all the damage from the past, she couldn't help but wonder of her future. Her eyes went blank as she recalled the sight of Fenrir Greyback bent over the body of Lavender. She was never particularly fond of the bubbly girl but Hermione never would have wished her such a horrible end. Her parents must have been heartbroken and Hermione wondered if they were even able to leave the casket open as they said their final goodbyes. As the images of Lavender Brown's mangled corpse slowly fizzled away, Hermione was left to only see the young girl in front of her. She pressed her lips into a somewhat sad smile and nodded with forced certainty, "You'll be fine." The little witch's face beamed at Hermione's reassuring words, unknowing of their true meaning, and went back downstairs. Hermione's eyes followed the girl's back down the hallway and then the steps until she could no longer be seen. "_You'll be fine,_" she repeated in a hushed tone only meant for herself this time.

xxx

The draught worked, and so did Lucius's spells. After staring out the window for a short while longer, she downed the potion and laid down on the springy bed, where she stayed peacefully until morning. Having the entire day to herself, and having absolutely no interest in going outside, she divided her time between enjoying an extremely long, pampered bubble bath with the toiletries she found in the small laboratory, and trying to improve her appearance. With no hair dryer –a muggle tool made obsolete in the wizarding world by the use of wands— the real challenge was getting her naturally frizzy hair to behave itself. As she stared into the mirror at the bags under her eyes, and her pale complexion, she knew it was the result of two years with no substantial amount of good-quality rest. Between the night she spent in the hospital and then the dreamless sleeping potion she had used last night, her appearance was beginning to improve, yet only slightly. With the way Malfoy had been shoving her in front of the cameras, she was determined to look at least half-way decent, if not for herself then for the sake of her view in the public eye. She could only imagine how horrible the pictures from yesterday had looked. Without any muggle cosmetics and no wand, she decided some serious pampering was all she could do for the time being.

Around mid-day, there was a gentle knock on her door. Just as the evening before, she cautiously listened through its surface after asking for identification. "I've brought you food," called a familiar, youthful voice and Hermione knew it was the girl from yesterday. She opened the door and allowed the young witch in. "It's after noon and you haven't even had any breakfast," she announced as she set a plate on the small bedside table. It was loaded to the brim with all sorts of hardy, stick-to-your-ribs items. Mashed potatoes and gravy, some sort of pasta dish, and a thick deli sandwich on rye bread.

"And how do you know I haven't already eaten? I could have food tucked away here somewhere," Hermione teasingly crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow as the girl plopped on the bed, bouncing on its edge for a moment before settling down to a gentle pace.

She looked around the room and saw no food wrappers, no garbage, not even any clothing or personal items at all. "Just a hunch." Hermione smiled weakly and walked over to the plate of food. It looked delicious but she didn't want to eat in front of her. She offered the girl the sandwich but she refused. Instead, she asked, "Have you seen today's Daily Prophet?"

Hermione had a bad feeling and replied, "No, why?"

The little witch smiled and left the room before quickly returning with a slightly crumpled copy of the wizarding newspaper. She handed it to Hermione. "You're on the front page."

Suppressing a groan, the older witch took it in her hands. Right on the front cover, larger than life, was a picture from yesterday, except it wasn't of Lucius and Hermione on the street. Somehow one of the reporters had gotten into the Leaky Cauldron and snapped a few candid photos of them at the table together. They were sitting in a back corner, privately seated at a table set for two, engrossed in what appeared to be a very deep conversation. Of course no one outside their tiny bubble could hear what exactly was being said, as Hermione stared down at the picture, even she knew it looked to be much friendlier than it actually was.

"Is he your boyfriend?" asked the girl with a huge grin that she couldn't hold back even if she tried.

Hermione frowned and looked at the caption below the image. _'Recently spotted out and about, Mr. Lucius Malfoy and Miss Hermione Granger share an intimate moment in Diagon Alley's very own Leaky Cauldron!'_ The article below continued to explain how the unlikely pair chose to engage in a riveting—although private conversation rather than order food. To quote the article exactly, _'They chose to enjoy each other's company instead of the Leaky Cauldron's many dishes.'_ Hermione shook her head and mumbled, "No, he's not," before politely asking the girl for some privacy. Disappointed, the young witch left Hermione with the plate of food and gossiping article.

She thought surviving the photographers yesterday was bad enough, but as she finished reading their exaggerated story, she realized the news writers were so much worse. Again, she found herself sympathizing with everything Harry had to deal with throughout their years at Hogwarts, but she couldn't take her eyes off the picture. At first she tried to figure out where the photographer must have been sitting to get them at that angle, but then she took notice of their faces. Most of her face was hidden as the reporter must have been sitting mainly behind her; however Lucius's face was in full view. His face was leaning in closer to hers, with his elbows resting on the table's surface. His stare was intense as he spoke with her. He wasn't smiling, or even expressing much aside from the emotions in his eyes, but it was clear that whatever they were talking about had him captivated. She remembered this moment, and remembered how rough his voice sounded as he warned her not to mess with him. He had told her that despite what she thought she knew about him, he had absolutely nothing left to lose, yet everything to gain from their situation. She, on the other hand, had everything to lose. She was without her wand and depended on his cooperation to get it back. But as they took away his words and the tone in his voice, and left only the image in front of her, she could see how it may have looked less hostile, possibly even friendly. Hermione sharply closed her hand directly on top of the front page photograph and balled it up before throwing it on the floor. With nothing else to do, and not wanting to go out in public even more than before, she walked over to the window and watched the street as it filled with the day's load of busy witches and wizards.

* * *

><p>Hours later, as the street lights flickered on below her rented room's window, Hermione heard a knock on the door. It had been quite some time since she had seen the girl from downstairs, and as she opened the door, that's who she expected to see. She was wrong and silently scolded herself for not being as cautious as she was before. Lucius Malfoy was standing in her doorway and although neither felt the need for greetings or any customary forms of acknowledging they even knew each other, Lucius held up a piece of parchment with a tack still attached to the top. "<em>This<em> was pinned to the next door down the hall. I'm assuming it was meant for you." Hermione grabbed the notice and opened the door wider, to which Lucius strolled in and examined the room silently.

_**Hermione,**_

_**I'm sorry for whatever I did.**_

_**Please give me another chance.**_

_**Just let me talk to you and if you never want to see me again,**_

_**I won't bother you. I just need to see you.**_

_**I love you.**_

_**-Ron**_

Hermione read the note and stared at the page, repeating the last line over and over in her head, remembering the way Ron used to always smile when he said it. It made that ache in her chest return worse than before and if Malfoy wasn't standing only a few feet away, she would have surely broken out in tears after reading it. Malfoy had wandered over to the window and was leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, staring down at the people on the street with disinterest. "Touching, isn't it?"

His tone was mocking and unnecessary. "It's rude to read other people's letters," she announced firmly as she folded the parchment and slid it into her pocket.

"It was pinned to the door out in the open," Malfoy insisted before adding, "the wrong door at that." He couldn't avoid teasing a Weasley, even when he wasn't there to defend himself.

Luckily, Hermione was there and didn't hesitate to put Malfoy in his place. "It's the thought that counts. Besides, with all the protective charms surrounding this room, he may have been pounding away at my door all night and I just didn't hear him."

Lucius shook his head and raised one of the corners of his mouth to a twisted grin. "You heard me knocking. Face it, he's as dim-witted as the Weasley's come. He can't help it; it's in his breeding." A false expression of compassion and sympathy washed over his face before quickly going back to his seemingly bored demeanor. "Now, I do believe we're overdue for a drink." He took a step forward and held out his arm to Hermione. She grumbled something under her breath about pureblood inbreeding and forced her hand to rest on his forearm.

xxx

Moments later, Hermione and Lucius were standing outside an old stone building. It was massive; more so tall than it was wide, but still pretty impressive compared to the pubs she had been to before. She stared up at the windows and saw tons of different shadows, silhouettes of other guests enjoying their evening out. She didn't realize how long she had been staring until Lucius brought his lips down to her ear and whispered, "You can let go of my arm now, unless you'd like to provide the Daily Prophet with their next story."

She hadn't realized she was even still holding onto him but as soon as she was informed, she pulled her hand away as if she had just dangled it between the jaws of a bear trap. Lucius dusted off the invisible cooties he was sure was left over before walking up the steps and grabbing the door. He stood to the side and held it open, waiting for Hermione to follow his lead and enter the establishment. As they first walked in, Hermione was amazed at how much gold-trim laced the wall's borders. It was incorporated into the whole room's décor and she was sure the pattern was followed throughout the whole building. It seemed to brighten up the atmosphere incredibly well considering how high-class everything looked. Malfoy quickly pulled her to the side and withdrew his wand. Hermione started to yank herself away from him but he grabbed her by the wrist firmly and demanded, "Stay still. You're not dressed appropriately." He made a tisking sound and mumbled, "Hideous muggle clothing…" before waving his wand over her torso and flicking it off smoothly as he reached her knees. "That'll do." He took a step back and eyed her up and down as Hermione looked herself over as well. Her muggle jeans and shirt had vanished and in their place was a stunning silver dress. It shimmered in the light even though Hermione couldn't actually see any physical sparkles or sequins.

"It's beautiful," Hermione exclaimed as she twirled around once to watch how the bottom seemed to flow and float in the air. There was a thoroughly detailed trim around the whole bottom and around the collar with a thin, deep green thread. Without thinking of who she was talking to, she stared down at her dress and breathed, "Thank you."

Malfoy, taken by as much surprise as Hermione was, simply nodded and clarified, "I won't have you look like such a muggle while in my company." Hermione's smile faded but Lucius straightened his own dress robes quickly and lifted his chin. "Let's get this over with, shall we?"

xxx

They were recognized at once; more specifically, Lucius was recognized. A sharply dressed wizard with salt and pepper hair and a sun-weathered complexion spotted them immediately as they stepped towards the dining area on the lower floor. "Mr. Malfoy. It's a pleasure to see you again! Will your usual table be suitable for the occasion?" He stole a glance at Hermione before quickly looking back at Lucius.

"No occasion, but yes. I'd like my table." Before Lucius could even finish his sentence, the wizard snapped his fingers at a younger man cleaning one of the tables nearby. He picked up his cleaning tray and rushed out of sight. A few moments later, he was back and the first, older wizard smiled politely. "If you'll follow me please."

The man led them up a massive staircase, which was also laced delicately with the gold trim, and down to the very last balcony booth in the row. It wasn't a particularly large room; in fact, Hermione thought it looked slightly smaller than the other private balcony seating areas they had passed. The wizard host watched hesitantly as Lucius walked over to a chair, pulled it out, and sat down. Realizing Hermione would have to seat herself, he insisted, "Allow me, Ma'am," and helped her into her seat. As Hermione glanced across the table, Lucius didn't seem to notice the exchange, and if he had, he didn't acknowledge it. "A server will be with you shor—,"

"No need. We don't plan to stay long," Lucius interrupted with a wave of his hand. He stopped to look at Hermione and asked, "Only a drink, correct?" His tone was steady and to the point, but his eyes made it actually seem like a real question instead of just restating the facts.

It was confusing and Hermione decided to play it safe. "Right. Just drinks."

The host seemed slightly disappointed, but nodded and replied, "Very well." He pulled his wand from a hidden pocket inside the breast of his robes and smiled at Hermione. "What can I get for you, Ma'am?"

Hermione hadn't actually thought about what she was going to be drinking and it showed as she ordered the first thing that came to mind. "Limoncello please." Her muggle parents had introduced her to the Italian liquor years ago at a family wedding. It was sweet and refreshing and although she hadn't drank it recently, it was the first thing she thought of. The wand-wielding wizard gave her another nod along with a smile and waved his wand over their small table twice until a glass appeared in front of her. It was filled with an ice cold, light yellow liquid and she thanked him.

He turned to Lucius and asked happily, "Your usual, Sir?"

"No. Whiskey will do." As the wizard made a short glass appear in front of Lucius, the blonde wizard added, "You might as well leave the bottle." Hermione stared at him from across the table as a bottle suddenly accompanied Lucius's glass.

"Can I get you anything else?" The waiter's eyes bounced from Lucius to Hermione, not asking anyone in particular. Hermione shook her head and Lucius poured himself a glass before also shaking his head. "If you should change your mind, I'm only a call away. Enjoy your evening!" With cheerful enthusiasm and one last smile, the wizard turned and left, closing the door behind him.

Lucius pulled his wand out and aimed it at the door. Hermione heard a distinct _'Click' _and knew it had been locked, if not sound-proofed as well. With one quick gulp, Malfoy downed his drink and slipped his wand back into his cane beneath the table. Hermione watched him pour another glass, having not even touched her own drink yet. He must have felt her eyes on him because as he set the bottle back down, he glanced in her direction and asked, "Your drink is not to your liking?"

"No, it is," Hermione answered, quickly wrapping her fingers around the base of her glass, and added, "I just never imagined you to be a whiskey drinker."

He was about to swallow the second glass when her words struck him. He kept his hand on the glass and asked curiously, "What else am I supposed to drink?"

Hermione shrugged and mumbled, "I don't know. Some elegant wine that probably costs more for a bottle than a house does." She took a sip of her sweet beverage and watched him aimlessly fondle the sides of his still-full glass.

"Well yes, for dinner. However you asked to have drinks." He rose his glass slightly and clarified, "And _this_ is a drink." He lowered it down until the rim met his mouth and finished his second serving just as quickly as the first. He reached for the bottle again but Hermione stopped him.

"Don't you think you should slow down? We have somewhere to be after this and the last thing I need is a drunken guide." She didn't mean it to sound so scolding, in fact she even thought a calmer, more concerned tone would be best, but what came out sounded only like unwanted criticism to Lucius's ears. With his eyes still steady on Hermione's, he carefully lifted the bottle and poured its contents into his drinking glass one more time. Hermione rolled her eyes and took another sip of her own beverage.

As Malfoy lowered the bottle back down to the table, his hand didn't return to his glass. Instead, it disappeared inside his cloak pocket only to reappear only a small vial of clear liquid. Hermione's eyes filled with outrage. _'Oh hell, he's brought his own brew…I'm with a bloody drunk,'_ She was about to make her opinion known when Lucius placed the vial down between their two glasses. "Do you really think I'd lower myself to wander the streets, intoxicated with a mudblood of all people?" Hermione's jaw clenched as he called her the name she hated the most. He noticed her sudden change and knew it was his wording. He pushed the tiny vial towards her and brought the subject back to their drinking. "It's a sobriety potion." As she examined the clear liquid, Lucius leaned back in his chair and devoured his third glass of whiskey.

Hermione held the potion up to the light and noticed how thick it was. She had never seen anything like it, so crisp and translucent, but so heavy. She carefully pulled off the top and let the smell waft just below her nostrils. As the scent hit her, she pulled it away with a gag. It smelled like vomit. "That's disgusting," she exclaimed and capped the potion's top back on tightly. "I've never come across this potion before, and I've read all the books in the Hogwarts library at least twice."

Lucius laughed. It wasn't a snotty jeer or a refined chuckle like she had heard before, but instead he let out a short noise that she recognized immediately as a real laugh. She didn't think he was even capable of it. "Somehow I doubt Dumbledore would have approved of a sobriety potion in the curriculum." Hermione smiled and shrugged in agreement. Her mind wandered to her fallen Headmaster and she found herself taking one more sip of her limoncello, silently toasting drink to his memory. Malfoy looked down at the vial of sobriety potion and added, "Though I don't doubt Severus had a readily brewed batch with him at Hogwarts; he was the first person I've seen to make such a potent version."

"I didn't think Professor Snape was a drinker," Hermione confessed as she remembered how gloomy and depressed her old potions master always seemed. Maybe he did go back to his office every night and down his sorrow in a bottle; she knew she couldn't kid herself into claiming to know him at all, even after spending time in his class for years.

Malfoy shook his head once and confirmed, "He wasn't. This was many years ago. I was in my last year at Hogwarts and had indulged with a few friends the night before an important exam. I had drank more than the others for one reason or another and ended up in a miserable state in the dormitories later that night. He was only a first-year back then, but I remember him kicking me awake a little after 3 am." Lucius's eyes were fixed on the glassy potion in front of them but she could sense he was lost in his memories, most likely a result of the whiskey starting to take its effect. A soft smile crept on his face and he finished, "He rolled me over and gave the potion to me. 'Just a few drops should do it,' he said as he eased it into my mouth and pulled me up onto my bed. Within a matter of a minute, maybe two, I felt my head settle and the bed-spins ended. I wanted to thank him but when I sat up, he had already gone back to bed." His eyes blinked shut as he remembered his deceased friend painfully and opened moments later to grab the bottle again.

Hermione watched the sudden rush of emotions leave his face as quickly as they had first appeared and she almost regretted listening to his story at all. It made her feel like they were slightly similar as she realized he had lost just as many if not more friends in the war than she had. In an attempt to avoid any more conversations, she took her drink in her hands and didn't let go until sip by sip, it was gone. By that time, only one-third of the bottle of whiskey was left standing and if Hermione had another drink herself, she was sure Lucius would have finished his bottle just as easily. As if on cue, as soon as Hermione lowered her empty glass to the table, Malfoy reached for the vial of sobriety potion. He tilted his head back and let four drops land on his tongue. When he shut his mouth and the taste hit him, his face twisted into a disgusted frown but Hermione could see his glazed over eyes quickly return to their normally hardened state. He cleared his throat with a cough and straightened his shirt collar beneath his cloak before leaned forward on the small table. "Tilt your head back," he commanded as he held the vial in his hand.

Hermione declined his offer and insisted, "I'm fine."

"You're a lightweight," Lucius corrected, still waiting to administer the potion. "If you don't clear your head before we leave, we're not going to the wand seller tonight." He was more concerned with what the Daily Prophet would say about him apparating into the night with a tipsy witch on his arm, but he knew she would care more about her wand than the gossip surrounding them. Hermione hesitated but after giving it a second thought, she agreed and bent her head back with her eyes closed, expecting the horrid taste to hit her tongue just as the smell assaulted her nose earlier. A moment passed and she felt nothing. She was about to open her eyes when she heard Malfoy's voice so much closer. "Stick out your tongue a little more," He must have been standing then because she knew as small as the table was, he couldn't be so close and still be seated. She pressed her tongue out a little further and immediately tasted the little droplets of vomit liquid as they absorbed into her tongue. She jerked her head back and her eyes flew open as she gagged and coughed. Lucius chuckled as he slipped the vial back into his cloak pocket. "It takes a little getting used to." He tossed a tall stack of golden coins on the table and waited until Hermione seemed to recover from the potion before offering his hand. "We can't apparate inside the building."

She nodded and took his hand as they left the private room upstairs. There seemed to be more people crowded into the ground-level section and Hermione knew that their evening would be printed in the Daily Prophet the next morning, most likely with quotes from the very people who sat staring at them as they walked out. The same wizard who seated and then served them took notice of them as they left and urged them to return again shortly, to which Lucius just nodded and passed a few gold coins into the man's hand. They stepped towards the door and it happened to be sheer luck that Hermione glanced outside before Lucius reached to open it. She thrust her hands on his arm just as his hand met the door handle, knocking it away roughly. "What the bloody hell do you—,"

"We can't go out there!" Hermione interrupted. He glanced around at the people nearby and pulled her off to a more secluded hallway, where she repeated, "We can't go out there. They're outside." She pointed aimlessly at the wall separating them from the world outside. Lucius leaned slightly to his left and peered out the window at the outline of two people standing just outside the restaurant's entrance. He recognized them immediately as boy wonder and his red-headed sidekick, as he liked to think of them. Hermione leaned against the wall behind her and shook her head, mumbling, "Why are they here?"

As if stating the obvious, Malfoy muttered back, "To see you I'd presume." Hermione shot him a look but her mind was too far along into a rising panic to even bother with his mocking tone. Lucius watched her face pale as her eyes darted around the room, most likely trying to find an alternate exit. She looked like a caged animal ready to bolt and he knew it was only a matter of minutes until she exploded with the anxiety building up inside her. He took one more look outside and offered, "You don't need to talk to them if you don't want to. We just need to get past that mark right there," he wiggled his finger at a large restaurant sign standing a short distance from the building. "We can apparate freely from that point on." Hermione spotted the sign he was talking about and rolled her eyes, pressing the back of her head against the wall behind her again. He could see her chest rising and falling heavily as her heart raced beneath and her breathing quickened.

She couldn't face Ron again, not after how she left him the last time. She didn't even know for sure if he was alive until she saw him standing outside; what if Harry and Ron were there to confront her about leaving him for dead? She shook her head and dropped her voice so only Malfoy could make out her words. "I did something horrible to Ron. I can't face him again, I just can't."

Lucius creased his forehead as he stared at the witch who was all but pleading with him. He couldn't possibly think of anything she could have done that was so terrible, then again he had made it a habit to do unspeakable things in all his years as a death eater. His gauge on what was acceptable and forgivable, and what wasn't had been thrown off slightly. He was the only one with a wand and knew he couldn't simply knock them out with a spell like he probably would have in the past. With one more sideways glance out the window, he returned to Hermione and offered, "I'll take care of it, but we can't stand here all night." Hermione closed her eyes as she tried to steady her breathing. He was right; if she didn't leave now, she doubted Ron and Harry would just pack up and leave anytime soon. They'd be stuck in this restaurant for hours and she would miss her chance to get her wand back. Lucius raised an eyebrow as if to silently ask for her answer, and she nodded reluctantly.

They headed back for the door and Malfoy grabbed the handle, yanking it open. This time he stepped out first, with Hermione following behind him with her eyes on the ground. Harry's head snapped up as he saw someone exit the building and it had finally been the people they were waiting for. He jabbed Ron with his elbow and Ron too looked in their direction. "Hermione!" He called out immediately and began rushing towards her. " 'Mione, we need to talk!" Harry hurried begin him and rested a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to slow him down.

Just as they came within feet of Hermione, Lucius held up his hands and stated flatly, "We've had a long evening and we'd rather just head home." His eyes lingered on Ron's as he added, "Without any confrontations."

Ron glared at what he deemed to be only an annoyance and snarled, "I wasn't talking to you, Malfoy." He turned back to Hermione and tried to soften his face. "Please, 'Mione. Just come back to the Burrow with me and we can talk about this."

Hermione swallowed hard and shook her head. "Ron, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I've done but I can't go back."

"Whatever I did to upset you, I'm sorry. You have to forgive me at some point." He begged and it was hard for Hermione to look into his eyes when he stared at her like that.

She shook her head again. "You didn't do anything, Ron. I just…I'm in a different point of my life." She knew she couldn't explain what was going on in her mind, the nightmares, the way she never felt safe in this wizarding world anymore. So instead, she went with an overused line, "We both need different things now and we'll just be better off this way."

Ron did buy it. In fact, he looked utterly confused. "What are you talking about? Whatever you need, I can give it to you. Just please, come back with me and I promise everything will be okay." He reached out and gently grabbed her wrist, pulling it to him in an attempt to get her closer. Hermione shook her head again and pulled back, but Ron wouldn't loosen his grip.

Harry leaned in and whispered something in Ron's ear but he shook him off and shifted his hand into Hermione's hand, trying to pull her more softly. If he could just hold her like he used to again, maybe she'd snap out of it and come home with them. She yanked her hand away but before she could apologize again for hurting him in the past, Lucius stepped between them. "She's given you her answer. Now take it like a man and leave her be." It was harsh and his stone-face seemed to harden even further as he bit down, tightening his jaw.

"I said I wasn't talking to you, Malfoy! Why the hell are you even here?" It wasn't a question, but instead a warning for Malfoy to leave. He didn't take it. The tall blonde wizard rested his hand on his cane with his finger lying delicately over the trigger that would release his wand from its secure hold. Ron kept his eyes trained on Malfoy for a few seconds longer before looking back at Hermione. "Please," he began and reached for her hand.

She started to pull it away when Lucius's wand landed directly below Ron's chin. Malfoy had stepped forward again, face to face with the determined Weasley, and now held the front of his shirt tightly in one fist while the other pinned his wand to the young man's upper throat. "Touch her again, and I do believe it's considered assault."

"Get the fuck off me, Malfoy!" Ron's body stiffed in an attempt to get just a little more distance between him and Lucius's wand, but the grip on his shirt tightened. He wasn't going anywhere. His face turned red as his temper began to boil over.

Lucius smirked and drawled, "You'd do best to calm yourself, boy. We wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."

Ron struggled again, but only gained the same unsuccessful result. Hermione could see the vein in his neck begin to bulge and although she thought it may have been from the strain of his shirt collar tugging around his neck so tightly, she knew his growing rage wasn't helping. "I said take your hands off me before I blood—,"

"Before you what?" Lucius taunted, that same satisfied smirk planted across his lips. "What's to say my wand doesn't misfire and burst your head into a million pieces of bloody, boney chunks?" They both fell silent as the seriousness of the situation began to sink in. Ron was in the death grip of a former death eater and it was only then that he actually realized the fact.

Ron looked at Hermione and exclaimed loudly, "What the hell 'Mione. Don't tell me this is the type of person you'd rather spend your time with! He's a psychopath!"

It was then that Harry chimed in as the voice of reason. "We all just need to calm down. Mr. Malfoy, what do you think your probation officer would say if he saw you now?" Harry noticed Lucius's eyes narrow slightly at the mention of his probation. He wouldn't have even been in this situation if it wasn't for his rehabilitation program with the ministry. "Ron, it's clear that Hermione's made her decision," Harry's eyes met Hermione's and she forced herself to look away. Even though his voice was steady, she could see the hurt by the way he looked at her. It was too much guilt for her to take. "You'll just have to accept that and give her some space," he finished and hoped his words were getting across somehow.

Malfoy announced with a low drawl, "In a second, I'm going to release you, and you're going to step back and let us pass peacefully. You won't attempt any contact now, or any time in the future. Do you understand?"

"I won't bother her," Ron snarled, seemingly defeated. Malfoy and Harry nodded in unison as the hand on Ron's shirt slowly loosened before breaking their connection entirely. The younger wizard shuffled backwards and ruffled the wrinkle out of his shirt. After a moment of stillness, everyone finally breathed again and Lucius offered his arm to Hermione. She took it and they made their final walk just past the point at which apparation was possible. She heard his voice first as it shouted a spell from behind them, and then she saw Malfoy fall next to her, landing roughly on the ground. She spun around wildly and saw Ron standing with his wand still aimed at the blonde wizard's back. His hand was shaking as Harry threw himself at Ron's arm and knocked his wand out of his hand.

Harry was just as shocked as Hermione as he shouted, "Ron! What did you do?"

He stared at Hermione as she knelt down beside Malfoy, checking to see if he was still conscious. He was just beginning to come to, but Ron wasn't watching Malfoy. He was looking directly at Hermione as he said coldly, "I said I wouldn't bother her. I never said anything about the bloody death eater."

Malfoy began to stir beside her and Hermione took the opportunity she was given. She pressed her hand against his shoulder and pled just above a whisper, "Get us out of here." Lucius closed his eyes as the air that had been knocked out of him slowly seeped back into his lungs painfully, and he apparated them from the spot.

_**A/N: Don't forget to review after you read! :) It really does wonders to let me know if my fanfic is utter crap or not, haha.**_

___**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Author's Notes: I tried my best to keep everyone in character but since we're dealing with such a non-canon pairing, it gets more and more difficult as the chapters go on. Let me know how I did in the reviews! Enjoy!  
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><p>Chapter 7<p>

Her eyes were pinched closed tightly during their sloppy travel through the realms of apparation, but as she felt the sudden stillness of her body and the solidity of the ground beneath her, she slowly opened them. Her heart was pounding, both from her troubling reunion with Ron and Harry, and their rough journey to wherever it was they had dissolved away to. Her eyes took in the room around her as they scanned over the deep maroon-colored walls and the cold wooden flooring beneath her. It was stained darker than its natural shade to match the room's colorings, and it had worked wonderfully as the whole space seemed to merge and mess together into different patterns of black, grey, and deep reds. They had landed in an office of sorts and as Hermione took in the sights around her, her eyes darted quickly from the row of crowded bookcases pressed against the two side walls, to the one source of natural light. Her bottom jaw slowly fell, parting her lips only slightly as she stared at the enormous set of windows behind a massive elm desk—also stained a darker tone. Behind the desk was an oversized black leather chair, but aside from those two items of furniture, this wall of windows was completely unobstructed. The glass panels ran from the floor to the ceiling and spanned nearly the entire length of the wall. There really wasn't even a need for lamps of any sort, with the amount of light pouring in so beautifully. It gave the room a warm feel that Hermione knew wouldn't be there otherwise. As if pulled by her curiosity, she stepped forward to get a better view of what the windows were meant to frame.

To say she was stunned would be an understatement, and yet even as she knew she could see its entire contents, she still found herself moving closer. Through the large glass windows was what appeared to be a private garden, small in size, but apparently undisturbed. It was enclosed on all sides by tall stone walls, covered in years-worth of vines and various plants. As she stood there, taking in the sheer sight of it all, the garden reminded her of an unorganized rainbow; the wide range of colors that flooded the background of green growth was the product of numerous different flowers and blossoming plants. They seemed to all play perfectly together, blending into a scene she couldn't take her eyes off of. The majority of the wild garden was made up of plants and other small-scale greenery, but she did notice there were a few trees around the edges and as she cricked her neck to look up at the sky, she could only see tiny holes of blue in between great big puffs of green leafy branches. It was a netted canopy of sort, but somehow the sunlight still managed to make its way in enough to light up the garden with such vivid colors.

A wheezy cough followed by a painful groan snapped her back to the rest of the room, where she looked back to see Lucius Malfoy just beginning to sit up on the floor where she had first stood. His movements were slow and sloppy, and as Hermione walked back over to his side, she could hear the strained effort he had to use while he took weak breaths in and out. His eyes were fixed on a random spot of the floor in front of him as he focused on forcing the air in, then back out of his lungs. Hermione watched and realized how lucky she had been that he had enough strength to apparate them at all. He had barely noticed her standing off to his right but as his eyes began to jerk around at his own surroundings, he quickly realized those surroundings included her. He stared up at her and began to speak but just as the first syllable escaped, another wheezy cough took its place.

Hermione knelt down next to him, unable to suppress her Gryffindor spirit, and asked, "What do you want me to do? Should I call for your wife?" Just as it looked as though Lucius was going to answer, he choked out a burst of tickled air again and simply shook his head. She tried again, "Your son then?" She watched as his chest expanded with each staggered breath, only to shrink back down to half its size, tight. Another shake of his head and Hermione was out of options. She scanned his eyes for some sort of answer but they held none. They were blank and despite his current condition, she couldn't even find a hint of panic in them. What she did find was the distinct glint of pain and discomfort every time he inhaled. He tried to speak again but just as he groaned, "Ho-," his lungs betrayed him, throwing him into an even deeper coughing fit. Hermione held up her hands, "Stop, stop." She stood and with another press of her hands against the air between them, she warned, "Just stay here. Don't do…anything." Her wording was awkward as she realized he really couldn't do anything anyway. Even sitting up instead of lying flat on his back was probably putting more strain on his innards and she had no idea what was damaged and what was still in good enough shape.

She ran to the door and yanked it open roughly as she burst into a long hallway. She recognized the design, the floors, the dull ache in the pit of her stomach as she pushed back the memories of her time within these walls. It was Malfoy Manor and her mind almost slapped her as she foolishly admitted that it was obvious where he would flee to as they apparated away from Ron and Harry. Really, where else could he go? Where else could she go?

Her eyes squinted down the halls' length and she took a shot in the dart, running off to the left and hoping it would lead to someone who could provide some sense of assistance. It felt like hours that she had been rushing from hallway to hallway, checking various doorknobs as she blew past them. Most were locked and the ones that weren't only led to empty rooms, or other hallways. A house this massive, there had to be someone somewhere, she just needed to find them. Her feet pounded against the harsh-sounding floors as she slowed down to try another door. As she turned the knob, it gave and creaked open. She was almost startled when she saw movement, but she wasn't as surprised as the little house elf she had burst in on. They both exchanged a momentarily-frightened yelp before Hermione called out, "Malfoy's hurt and I don't have a wand. I need you to help." The little elf stared at her, studying her face with curiosity and an ounce of hesitation before nodding and grabbing Hermione's hand. The elf snapped her fingers sharply and with a pop, they were transported back to the office Hermione had first appeared in.

The elf let go of Hermione's hand and hurried over to her Master's side. Lucius was lying on his back with his chest stretched as open as he could manage, trying to kick-start his lungs into breathing normally again. Hermione watched as the elf bent her ear down to his face. He had conquered speech while Hermione was gone, but only barely. She couldn't hear his voice from where she stood but she knew he must have been whispering orders to his house elf because after a few simple nods, the elf lifted her head and placed her hands on his chest gently. Hermione stood as stiff as a statue as she watched, her own breathing momentarily paused with suspense as she saw his chest stop rising. One second, two, another, and another. She counted silently in her head until she reached thirteen. The concentration in the tiny elf's eyes was incredible. Hermione knew house elves were powerful creatures; it was one of the reasons she had created S.P.E.W. all those years ago. They were so intelligent, so magically gifted, that it pained her to think the only thing society could deem them worthy enough for was to serve witches and wizards. Just as she was about to reach the fourteenth mental second, his chest rose suddenly with a loud gasp and a very distinct _crunching_ noise. It would have been a snap, but it lasted longer than that. The first crunch seemed to come from inside his torso and as her eyes steered down to the source, she heard another agonizingly similar sound, matched with a short cry of pain. The sides of his chest seemed to pop a little further outward than they were before and after seeing it happen for the third and final time, Hermione realized they were his ribs snapping back into place. When the last rib was set, Malfoy let out another weaker groan and pushed the house elf's tiny hands off of him.

He turned onto his side and hugged his arms around his chest, particularly the sides, and began to take in deep gulps of air. The house elf watched quietly for a moment before glancing over at Hermione. She was stunned. Her mouth hung unattached as she watched Malfoy writhe on the floor, not noticing as the little elf walked over and carefully slipped her gifted little hand inside Hermione's limp palm. She snapped her fingers just as she had done before and Hermione was out of the office, with Malfoy nowhere to be seen. She looked around and recognized the room immediately. It was the same room she had woken up in the last time she was in Malfoy Manor. The bed had been remade, but otherwise it was exactly as she had left it. The house elf stepped away from her and nodded once with a soft smile before disappearing into thin air.

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><p>The first hour was spent lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her thoughts ran a ramage through her head as she recalled all of the evening events. Somewhere deep down, she was glad she got to see her friends, but the results of that encounter weren't at all how she planned. She knew Ron would be upset that she wasn't going with him, but she never expected him to lash out at Malfoy. She had hurt him, and Harry as well, that much she completely understood, but she couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty for Malfoy's injuries. She hated herself for thinking that way; he was scum and she knew it. Heck, he probably even knew it too, but her Gryffindor spirit wouldn't let her escape her own conscience.<p>

When her mind wouldn't let her rest long enough to take more than a handful of five minute naps throughout her time spent on the bed, she gave up any hope of a restful night. She hopped off the bed and wandered out the bedroom door. Part of her was surprised it hadn't been locked, but she recalled Malfoy's words the first time she had spent the night in the manor. She was not a prisoner and was free to leave whenever she saw fit. The thought did cross her mind as she turned the doorknob and first realized it was unlocked, to leave then and never come back, but how far could she really get on foot? Without a wand, what would she do if she ran into trouble along the way to wherever it was she planned to go? She was stranded in the manor and in all honesty, the ancient mansion wasn't the worst place she could think to stay.

The halls were dark and even as she passed the few large windows on her way through the massive home, the stars above provided just barely enough light to guide her safely on her midnight journey. She had mentally added up the hours while she laid on the bed and figured it was somewhere between midnight and 1:30 am, though she wouldn't know for sure unless she happened to run into a clock on her aimless stroll.

With absolutely no idea where she was going or how to get there, she checked doorknobs at random to see what sorts of rooms each ones held. The majority of the rooms were empty bedrooms, guestrooms of sorts, and she quickly closed those doors with no interest in the different interior designs. She decided as she roamed the halls that she would settle for the first kitchen she found. The only thing she had in her stomach was a mixture of the alcohol and sobriety potion she had drank earlier in the evening. The young witch continued down the corridor until she took a quick right and began down another identical path. She knew she probably should have been paying attention to which turns she was taking just in case she did decide to go back to her room later, but she knew she had no attachments to that room in particular, and she had a whole manor of empty bedrooms to choose from.

The fourth door she checked in this hall was again, another bare room that appeared to be used as miscellaneous storage. She closed the door and shook her head, _'What's the point of having so many rooms if you don't even use them?'_ Her hand found the next knob and her heart almost dropped as she peered inside. Although it wasn't any larger than the other rooms, this one was certainly used properly. All four walls were lined with bookshelves, crammed to the brim with all sorts of reading material. Her search for food seemed to slip into the back of her mind as she ran her finger tips over the bindings of a row of books at her eyelevel beside the door. She quickly realized they were organized by topic and this particular section was designated for potions and magical herbs. Her eyes traveled upward and she found another section meant for healing charms and other medical magic. The bookcase beside it held defensive spells and charms, as well as protective charms and personal concealment in various forms. She was sure Harry's invisibility cloak would be mentioned somewhere in that section. Just as she ran her finger along the edge of the third bookcase, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Her hand jerked away from the shelves as her head swiveled nervously to the source of the interruption. Lucius Malfoy. The wizard's long blonde hair had been pulled back and securely fastened by a thin black ribbon just behind his neck. His shirts were off and in their place was a series of heavy bandages that wrapped around his torso tightly.

Hermione quickly looked away, an awkward blush creeping over her cheeks as she caught sight of his semi-topless form. She had seen shirtless males before during her time at Hogwarts and all her visits to the Burrow, but she couldn't help but feel like she had violated Malfoy's privacy by his current appearance. Malfoy walked into the room only to pause a few steps in when he spotted Hermione. He raised his chin as he examined her, searching for a reason for her presence. She was standing beside a bookcase, facing them in fact, with her hand raised as she inspected its shelves. Perhaps she truly was the massive bookworm Draco had always made her out to be. He eyed her a second longer as she stared down the shelves, avoiding his direction entirely. With a shrug, Lucius continued walking towards the small sitting area, grabbed his shirt off the back of the sofa and pulled it on. Just as he finished half of the buttons, he finally spoke. "It's late. You should be sleeping."

His voice acted as a guide, letting her know he was then covered to a level she felt more comfortable with, and she quickly replied, "So should you." She glanced down at the tight bandages around his chest where he hadn't yet finished buttoning his shirt. "I'm surprised you're even standing, with the state of your ribs." Lucius ignored her and went to sit in a large reading chair next to the sofa.

As he lowered himself into the chair, his torso remained stiff, trying not to bend more than he needed. There was a book sitting on the coffee table in front of him and he took it, opening it up to the marked page. With his eyes still on the book, he asked idly, "Would you like a sleeping draught?"

"No," Hermione mumbled back, regret ringing in her voice already. "I can't become dependent on them. I'll go mad for sure." She knew the mind needed dreams to survive, and by blocking out those dreams with potions, it was only putting more strain on her sanity.

Lucius shrugged silently. After another half-minute, he looked up from the pages of his book and noticed she was still standing by the shelves. "If you're going to stay here, I'd prefer if you took a seat. You sway when you stand," He let the words trail off as he returned to reading, softly adding in, "It's distracting."

Hermione opened her mouth, but closed it again when she realized he was done talking. She expected him to keep going, add on an insult for good measure, most likely about her lineage, but he didn't. He just kept his eyes on his book before glancing at her again and shifting his eyes quickly to the sofa. She didn't want to go back to bed, not when she knew it would be hours before she would be able to sleep, so she walked over to the end of the sofa furthest from Malfoy and sat down. Minutes passed and soon they added up to nearly an hour of calm silence. It was relaxing and Hermione was thrilled to finally have a book to take her mind off everything. She had gone to the library numerous times the last couple years, but it was a muggle library. Having a real wizarding book in her hands was a totally different sensation. The paper and binding was the same, but its context was so vibrant, so alive. She really did miss this part of the wizarding world; she couldn't deny it.

She had almost forgotten Malfoy was in the room until he closed his book and got up from his chair. Hermione's eyes followed him as he strolled over to a nearby bookcase and placed the book on the shelf with the others. His lips pressed together as he skimmed over the titles. Finally, he reached up and pulled a leather-bound book off the shelf and returned to his seat. He flipped it open and glanced over at Hermione's book, recognizing it immediately. "It's a quick read, isn't it?" She raised an eyebrow and Lucius pointed at the book in her hands. "The author is brilliant. His books always flow so well that it doesn't even feel like you're reading at all."

"Oh." Hermione smiled involuntarily and nodded. "I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're right." She was nearing the end of the book but still had a few pages left. "I didn't even realize he had published this book. I thought I had read all of this collection but I guess I missed this one."

Lucius shook his head. "That one was released just last year."

Hermione nodded again. "I wonder if I can order wizarding books through owls once I go back home." She was mainly speaking out loud to herself.

Curiosity got the better of him and Malfoy asked, "What's the point in returning to the muggle world after your presence has already been known here again?"

She had asked herself the very same question the past few nights and she always came up with the same answer. "I can't stay here." It was becoming repetitive, between telling Ron, and Harry, and now Lucius. "As soon as I get my wand, I'll go back home and forget any of this every happened. Maybe go to University and work on my studies."

He was scanning over her face and could tell she was saying it more for herself than for him. "And what do muggles study exactly?" His tone was steady, his voice calm, as if he was actually asking her instead of mocking her.

With a shrug, Hermione answered, "All sorts of things. I don't know what I'd study though. All my plans for the future had included staying here, continuing my schooling and possibly even going back to Hogwarts as a teacher." Her eyes shifted down to her book as she lowered her voice. "But that's changed now."

There was a moment of silence before Malfoy asked another question. "What do you suppose the muggle world will give you that the wizarding world can't? The ability to forget?" Again, it wasn't mocking and yet his interest made Hermione pause. After seeing no harm in his question or her answer, Hermione nodded one more time. Lucius raised an eyebrow. "And how has that been working for you so far? Two years and you still can't sleep…" He made a tisking sound with his tongue and looked back down at his book. "You may want to reevaluate that plan of yours." There it was; the mixture of disinterest and false sympathy in his voice let her know he was now mocking her.

She bit down on her back teeth, stiffening her jaw and forced her chin up. "Nobody asked you," Hermione snapped back at him. Before he could get his eyes back on her, she had already stood from the sofa and shoved the book back on the shelf. He watched as she grabbed the doorknob and walked out, not forgetting to slam the door behind her. Suddenly alone in his library, he raised his eyebrows and returned back to his book with a deep breath, muttering, "Mudbloods…such touchy little things."

* * *

><p>Hermione sat on a stool in the large industrial-sized kitchen with a plate of eggs and toast in front of her. She had been awake for hours and grew tired of the bedroom quicker than she'd thought. Having managed two full hours of solid sleep without any nightmares, it was the longest night she'd spent without waking up screaming. It still wasn't good by any measure of standards, however it was progress if only slightly, and she accepted it. When the nightmares did come to wake her, they were the same as always, except with little variations. Instead of Ron being by her side during the war, she found herself alone as she fended off two death eaters at once. In her dreams prior, it had always been herself with Ron only feet away, both watching each other's backs as well as they could. It always ended the same though. She would fight and fight; it would seem to go on for days when really the battle had only lasted hours. Still, by the end, she was exhausted and really couldn't understand how she was still standing. By the end of her dream, she was always the last one from the Order. She'd look around and realize all too quickly that it wasn't her friends fighting beside her anymore, but bodies scattered on the ground. They had all been killed, every last person she'd ever cared about, and the twist in the pit of her stomach was always worse in her dreams than when she was awake.<p>

After waking from her night terror, she had washed up in the bathroom, hoping a nice warm bath would soothe her mind as well as her body. It did her some good but her stomach wouldn't stop growling in protest at her lack of a regular eating schedule. She left her room and made it a point to find a dining room or a kitchen and get some form of a decent breakfast, and that is how she came to sit on this lop-sided wooden stool. The house elf from the night before was already in the kitchen, preparing a massively decorated feast when Hermione walked in. It caught the little elf off guard as she wasn't used to anyone actually coming into the kitchen. She had always just been used to bringing the food out to the dining room or to a bedroom. The smell of the eggs reached Hermione's nose just as she opened the door and she knew she couldn't possibly leave that kitchen without getting a plate.

The elf had been kind, offering her the stool and making her the plate quickly, and Hermione thanked her just over a million times before she finally dug in excitedly with her busy fork. It was delicious, so fluffy and moist. It didn't take her long to finish the eggs before she started on the toast. Just as she was about to compliment the house elf on her cooking and thank her again for her generosity, the little creature vanished with a pop. _'Malfoy must be awake,'_ she thought to herself, giving her eyes a roll before returning back to her toast.

A few minutes later, the house elf reappeared and began scooping different items onto a large plate. Balancing the plate on one hand, and dangling an assortment of different jams, butters, and syrups from the long, thin fingers of her other hand, she disappeared again. She was gone longer that time, half an hour at least, but as she returned, her hands were empty. "They must keep you busy," Hermione said. The elf shrugged and walked over to the sink with a large dirty skillet. She tossed it in with a clatter and Hermione asked, "Are their breakfasts always this large or is today a special occasion?" She thought of Narcissa Malfoy and really couldn't picture such a thin woman eating so much in one sitting. The elf shrugged again and began her work, filling up the sink with soapy water. "Even Draco. I don't remember him eating a lot at Hogwarts, except the desserts of course." She was talking out loud, trying to get some sort of a conversation going between her and the house elf. It was only proper after the elf had been so nice.

The house elf shook her head with a short response. "Only Master Malfoy."

Hermione's brows creased the middle of her forehead as she asked, "He only what? Eats desserts?" She wondered how anyone could survive on only sweets, but the house elf corrected her before her mind could entertain such a ridiculous thought.

"Here. Only here." Her broken English told Hermione the Malfoys obviously didn't care to educate the elf. Even if it wasn't normal practice, Hermione still believed all house elves should learn to read and write properly.

"Oh." Hermione said quietly as she realized what the elf was saying. "He's the only one here? His wife and son aren't here?"

The elf nodded and shut off the water just before the bubbles could pour over the edges of the sink. "Master Malfoy, yes. Madam Malfoy, no. Young Master Malfoy, no."

"Where are they?" Hermione asked, but the house elf only shook her head again. Either she didn't know or she wasn't going to tell Hermione. After all, she was a strange witch and the little elf had probably been taught to only trust a handful of people at best. Hermione finished her toast and placed the dish in the sink. She thanked the house elf again with a smile and left the kitchen.

As she passed through the dining room, she saw Malfoy sitting at the head of a long empty table, aside from all the plates sitting at his end. "Good morning," he grumbled as he saw her. His fork rested on his plate as he asked, "Have you eaten?" Hermione nodded with her arms crossed over her chest. Clearly she had not forgotten how they parted last night. Malfoy mimicked her nod and began stabbing bits of food onto his fork. "My house elf says you slept well…no screaming at least."

Hermione shifted in her stance, wondering if the house elf had been keeping tabs on her or if she simply slept in a neighboring room. It didn't matter. She had no desire to discuss her night with Malfoy. "If you're well enough, I'd like to leave." Her voice was unwavering as she spoke.

Lucius bit at his fork. "Meet me in the library an hour from now and I'll take you back." Hermione, having nothing else to say to the blonde wizard, left the room without another word and headed for the library.

* * *

><p>Hermione was sitting on the sofa with a book in her hands when he walked in. She closed the book and stood, to which Lucius held up his palm. "Take it with you. I'll get it back tonight when we go get your wand." Hermione looked down at the book and silently agreed, secretly thankful that she would have something to read while in her room at the inn. "The Prophet just arrived." He stated and withdrew the wizarding newspaper from his cloak's inner breast pocket. He handed it to her and Hermione took it. "No photographs today, however there was a rather riveting article with a few quotes from last night's bystanders."<p>

Her eyes landed on the large header at the top of the page. _**'A Night Out Turns To Blows'**_. Ron's portrait was worked into the text of the article, his smiling face top off with his brilliant red hair, and Hermione found herself avoiding the picture as she read the rest of the page. Just as Lucius had said, there were large chunks of statements from people who had witnessed their confrontation outside the building. It told everything from Lucius and Hermione going inside together, to them leaving hours later. But the main part of the article was what happened after they left. It made sure to mention how Lucius had grabbed Ron and then how Ron had struck Lucius with a spell from behind. Her eyes drifted back to Ron's picture and she folded the paper in half before handing it back to Malfoy. "You must be happy. They've painted Ron as some sort of violent lunatic and you as a hero, defending me."

"You're saying I wasn't defending you?" Lucius asked sharply. "If he had yanked on you any more, your arm would have popped off."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "I'm saying you had other motives in mind. I'm thankful that you helped me but I wouldn't exactly call you a hero."

Lucius lifted his chin and took in a deep breath through his nostrils. "Believe what you will. It makes no difference to me."

Hermione tossed the book in her hands onto the coffee table, no longer wanting to take it with her, and said impatiently. "Just take me to the inn."

* * *

><p>She stood beside the window in her small rental room, staring down at the street below. Lucius had his wand raised as he laid down the protective charms just as he had done before. He glanced over his shoulder and watched Hermione's eyes follow various people outside. "You still don't miss the wizarding world? You seem to spend a lot of time at that window."<p>

"I miss it," Hermione confirmed softly, still looking down at the shops and buildings all along the street. "But I can't picture myself in it anymore."

Lucius sidestepped over to the next wall and carefully worked his wand over its surface. "I could wipe your memory if you'd like," Malfoy offered, but Hermione declined. He knew she would. Only a fool would erase the memory of something that had changed the world in such a massive way. "You know, it doesn't have to stay like this. You just need to learn how to deal with your issues."

"_My_ issues? Fuck off, Malfoy! I wouldn't even have any _issues_ if your lot hadn't gone psycho and tried to kill more than half the wizarding community!"

He lowered his wand and turned to look at her. She had broken away from the window and was glaring at him, obviously offended by his suggestion again. He shook his head. "I didn't mean it as an insult." Hermione didn't believe him but he went on anyway. "If you plan on ever getting back to a normal sort of life, you're going to have to deal with everything."

She bothered her, to hear him talk to her as if he knew anything at all. If he really thought it was so simple, wouldn't she have dealt with it already? She pressed her arms over her chest and looked back at the window. "Don't you think I've tried that already? Sleeping draughts, dreamless sleep potion, silencing my bedroom before I fall asleep, staying awake, nothing works."

"Of course it doesn't. Those are only temporary fixes, ways to cover everything up, but you're not actually dealing with them by doing any of those things." Lucius had returned to the wall with his wand at the ready, slowly casting carefully laid protective charms.

Hermione stared down at a mother with two children walking into the robes shop across the street. Her mind was split between trying to ignore Lucius and listening to him in the background. "How am I supposed to _deal_ with them then? If you're so smart," Her sarcastic tone caught his attention and he lifted his head for a moment before concentrating again on his wand work.

"Well, have you even talked about it at all? Have you ever sat down and really thought about what was bothering you? You can't fix something if you don't know what you're trying to fix." His words made sense and it bothered her. "Your plan, to get your wand and go hide away in the muggle world again, all that's going to do is let your problems fester."

"What does it matter to you?" She snapped loudly. Malfoy froze as she raised her voice at him. "Shouldn't you be happy? Another muggle-born out of the wizarding world, isn't that what your whole cause was for?"

She was right and as he stood with his wand inches away from the wall, he couldn't think of a single reason he could give her to stay. There really wasn't a reason he would want her to stay and they both knew it. The only reason he needed her in the wizarding world was to help him rebuild his reputation, but he couldn't say that. He bit at the inside of his cheek until it finally came to him. "You don't think it bothers me to see you suffering?" As the words left his lips, they felt so foreign to him, so out of place. He was glad his back was turned and his face was hidden because he had no idea what it must have looked like as he admitted feeling anything for a mudblood.

Hermione fell silent. She really couldn't even begin to think of a response. He had fought with Voldemort, tried to kill Harry and the rest of them all for the sake of his cause for purity, a pipedream. Her mind couldn't process that he may have felt anything other than hatred towards her. "Don't patronize me."

"I'm not." He interrupted and dropped his wand to his side, turning to face her. "You're not the only one who's been damaged by this war and you shouldn't have to live with it on your own. But you refuse to see your friends and your muggle family wouldn't know where to begin with helping you. You're lost and it's painful to witness." He was exaggerating of course. As a man and a fellow survivor of the war, he related to her and could feel and understand everything she was feeling, but to go as far as to say he worried about her well-being wasn't exactly the truth. It was painful for him to see the bags under her eyes and know it was because of the dreams that haunted her. He had gone through the very same thing during all his years working under Voldemort, and he had survived it, though just barely at times. When he looked at her, he only saw himself and _that_ was what pained him, not knowing that _she_ was hurting. He could care less if she was hurting, but he just didn't want to see it. Unfortunately, he was forced to watch her struggle. He needed her to fuel the Daily Prophet's articles. He needed her to boost his moral image in the eyes of the ministry. But most of all he just needed her to stay long enough for him to think of a way he could get his probation over faster.

But Hermione didn't know all that. She knew she was helping him by posing for pictures, letting him treat her to dinners and drinks, but as soon as her wand was securely back in her palm, she could leave. Their deal would be over and both could walk away with a profit of sorts. She would have gained her wand again and he would have a better reputation as less of a death eater and more of a good citizen. He had absolutely no reason to feel for her at all, and yet there he was, feeling. She hugged her arms tighter around her chest and shifted in place. "Well, I'm sorry that it bothers you, but there's nothing I can do about that."

"You can fight," Lucius interjected firmly. "You can learn to not give in and take back control of your life. You're at a stand-still and you don't even realize it."

"I realize it," Hermione whispered softly to herself.

"Then do something about it. Prove that you want to get better. Because so far you've just been covering it up piece by piece, not dealing with any of it." His wand was still hanging to his side as his eyes focused on hers. His words were getting through to her, he could tell as they seemed to sink in and transform her stare from defensive to finally showing some recognition. "You know I'm right."

"I do want to get better…" Hermione insisted. "…I just don't know how. I've tried everything I could think of and nothing's helped."

Lucius took a step forward and tucked his wand into his cloak pocket smoothly. "_I_ can help," he offered, trying to keep his voice as steady as he could. He added with the most charming of smiles he could muster, "if you'll let me." He stood with his hands interlocked behind his back, his body language projecting a sense of openness. His cool blue eyes were fixed on her warm brown ones and he could see she was running it all through her mind, examining him cautiously for any signs of deception. She found none; his years as a closeted-death eater had provided him with plenty of practice in hiding his true self.

Hermione took a deep breath and looked back at the window, aimlessly focusing on a street corner down below. After a moment of continued thought, she finally nodded in agreement. "Okay." Lucius smiled and was about to speak when Hermione glanced over her shoulder at him. "Finish the protective charms." He smiled again, a genuine one this time as the corners of his eyes formed deep creases that weren't present in his forced grins before. He raised an eyebrow at her sudden sense of control over their conversation and withdrew his wand, turning back to the wall. "Of course."

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: What do you guys think? Will Lucius be able to help Hermione or is it a lost cause?<strong>__**Did she make the right decision by accepting his help? Let me know what you guys thought of this chapter and hopefully Chapter 8 will be posted soon.**_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Authors Note: Wow, major delay! Sorry about that. Please excuse any typos. I wanted to get this up and posted before I leave for work, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time editing. Let me know what you think by reviewing and with any luck, the next chapter will not take so long to post!**_

* * *

><p>Chapter 8<p>

"So, I'll let you pick where we go for dinner tonight," Lucius announced as he slipped his wand away, having finished placing protection around the room. Hermione groaned and crossed her arms over his chest.

"Is this going to be a nightly thing now?" She asked.

Lucius raised an eyebrow and nodded slightly. "Yes, mostly."

Hermione let out another grumble. "I don't suppose we could just eat in?" She knew his answer before he even began to shake his head with that smirk planted firmly on his face. "Didn't think so…" she mumbled and turned back to the window.

She had been bold enough to even ask, and for that Lucius almost thought of offering to skip their public outing for the evening, but then he noticed what her eyes were fixed on outside the window. Further down the long, busy street was one of the largest bookstores in the entire wizarding world. It was where every child went to gather their textbooks before attending Hogwarts, but it also held a rather extensive collection of books with an extremely wide variety of subjects for all ages. His eyes trailed back up from the front of the bookstore to Hermione and remembered how he found her in his library the night before. She simply couldn't help herself from plucking a book off his shelf and reading it despite him being in the room with her. An even better thought hit him and he offered, "Perhaps a trip to the bookstore would be suitable then?"

Hermione broke away from the window to look at Lucius. _'Is he serious?'_ she thought to herself, running over his face for any falseness. When he didn't take back his offer, she knew he wasn't just teasing her and jumped on his offer. "Yes, that'd be perfect!" She smiled and added, "We can go now and have plenty of time before nightfall. Then we can get my wand."

Lucius nodded in agreement and then looked at the room around them disappointedly. "Of course now I've wasted my time placing those charms," he grumbled.

With a short chuckle, Hermione teased, "As if you have anything else to do." Malfoy shot her a warning glance and went to open the door as they both left her rental room.

XXX

As they stepped downstairs into the Leaky Cauldron, the lunch crowd had already settled in and most tables were filled. It seemed as if every witch and wizard in the building's dining area turned their heads to watch Hermione and Malfoy walk towards the door together. Hermione noticed the eyes on her immediately and could feel her pulse quicken, pounding away deep within her chest and she just wanted to leave as soon as possible. Apparently Malfoy had also seen their sudden audience and played his part well. He took a few strides ahead of Hermione and grabbed the door, offering it to her as he let her exit first. Hermione took advantage of his manners and bolted out of the building with as much speed as she could manage without breaking out in a full sprint.

The street was alive with all sorts of people, rushing around from building to building, trying to get their errands run before their lunch period would end and Hermione wondered if there was any chance Malfoy would let her change her mind and return to the safety of her rental room. She had trouble remembering to breath properly as her body kicked into overdrive; the anxiety was building within her as an older wizard bumped into her arm as he passed in front of them. Lucius's hand fell on her shoulder blade gently and she physically jumped at the sudden contact. "Calm down and remember to smile," he coached in her ear and began to walk, easing her along beside him. Hermione was so distracted by the crowd around them that she hadn't even noticed the two Daily Prophet reporters who had been waiting for them outside the Leaky Cauldron.

One of the reporters called over to Malfoy, "You're looking better!" As they walked over with their magically trained notepads at the ready, the other Daily Prophet worker added, "Yes! You had quite the brawl recently!"

Lucius put on his charmingly polite smile and answered, "I wouldn't exactly call that little sucker-punch of a spell a _brawl_. The poor boy barely left a scratch." His smile widened as the reporters laughed at his reply, their enchanted quills scribbling away furiously. Hermione didn't seem to think it was funny at all. She remembered how much pain Lucius appeared to be in only the night before, after his house elf magically lined his ribs back in place so they could begin to heal properly. The way he was wheezing as he tried again and again to take in a full, deep breath, only to see him fail; it was agonizing to watch and now he was joking about it. All that seemed to slip to the back of his mind though as he boasted to the reporters, taking jabs at Ron in the process. Hermione bit at the inside of her lip and knew if they didn't get going soon, she'd have a hard time not defending him from Malfoy's mocking. It was true; Ron had taken a bit of a cheap shot at Malfoy, but he was upset and he probably didn't know what else to do. Hermione had understood what Ron had done, and forgiven him for it. How could she not after everything she had done to him?

Their chuckles died down and the first reporter asked, "So, what's on the schedule today?" He had been looking at Malfoy but Hermione knew if she didn't get this conversation moving, they'd be standing there all day.

She tried to make her voice sound as relaxed and calm as possible as she politely rested her hand on Malfoy's forearm and took the reins. "Actually we're running a bit late," she explained. "We hoped to stop by the bookstore before it got too crowded." She smiled as the reporters nodded, before she looked at how quickly the quills were writing. The reporter with the large camera began to raise it and Hermione realized they had taken note of her seemingly innocent gesture towards Lucius. She had touched his arm as a silent cue that she would be answering, but as she saw the way the reporters were looking at them, she knew the meaning got lost somewhere along the way.

The reporter without the camera asked, "No problem. Just a quick photo before you go then?" but before he had even finished the question, and before Hermione had time to remove her hand from Lucius's arm, the other reporter was already snapping away with a series of blinding flashes. Hermione's smile faded away as she pulled her hand away, but they had already gotten what they needed.

Lucius nodded, "Of course," and let the last few camera flashes finish as they stood side by side on the street, posing. The enchanted quills were still writing all over their notepads as Malfoy reached his arm behind her back and dropped his hand just below her shoulder, guiding her away from the reporters just as the camera began to snap a few last minute pictures. The blood pounded through her body even faster, her anxiety reaching its peak with each bright flash in her direction.

After a few more paces, Malfoy let his hand drop and they continued down the street. Hermione pushed through the door of the bookstore and felt her nerves finally settle. The smell of fresh parchment wafted over them as she entered and she knew this was one of the few places left that she could finally relax. Of course she would have preferred an isolated, safe place somewhere if she had to choose, but out of anywhere in the wizarding world, this was a close second. Hermione aimlessly headed down a narrow aisle along the right-hand wall and noticed Lucius was strolling right behind her. "Doesn't it bother you?" She called over her shoulder and spotted his eyebrow raise in interest. She continued as she glanced over the books around them. "You know they're going to use that photograph in tomorrow's paper to say I fancy you or that we were going on a date. I would have thought that would bother you." Hermione pulled a random book off the shelf to her left and scanned over its cover as she mumbled, "It bothers me."

There was a small moment of silence before Lucius lifted his chin out of sheer habit and answered, "I'm confident in who I am. I'd hope anyone who knows me well enough would be sure of me as well and see the Daily Prophet as nothing more than rumors." She didn't even need to look at him to know his chest was probably puffed out like a peacock; it was obvious enough through his tone. Hermione shrugged and put the book back on the shelf before continuing through the bookstore's aisles.

XXX

They spent what seemed like ages in the bookstore, examining this book, flipping through that book, splitting up for a period of time only to bump into each other again in a different section of the store. By the time they finally left, Hermione had a heavy bag filled with a new collection of books to keep her entertained in her room at the Leaky Cauldron, while Lucius only purchased three. Two of them he had reserved weeks ago; however the last one came as quite a shock to them both. As they met up at the cash register to purchase their new books, Hermione glanced over at his small bundle of books and noticed that the last one was a book she had also chosen to buy. In fact, it was one of the first books she had picked up off the shelves. It was about the history of magic, focusing mainly on the very first building blocks of the foundation of the ministry. It detailed how exactly the ministry was formed, by whom, and all the struggles that they faced along the way. It was fascinating to see how history had molded today's society into what it had grown to be, but as she noticed Malfoy also purchasing the book, it caught her off guard. He had a whole bookstore to choose from and for one reason or another, he had inadvertently chosen the very same book. She shrugged it off, paying it no more attention than needed, and lugged her bag towards the door.

Lucius finished checking out and glanced at the exit just in time to see Hermione's overfilled bag tear towards the bottom. Tucking his own books under his arm momentarily, he lengthened his strides so as not to appear in a hurry, and caught up to her. "Your ba-," he began just as the opening widened under the weight of her books. This time, he did hurry. He stepped forward in somewhat of an awkward lunge and grabbed the bottom of the bag just as the first couple books started to fall through. Hermione hadn't even noticed it had torn but as she heard Lucius begin to warn her, she could feel the bag give away. Lucius passed the bag carefully to Hermione by the bottom, trying to keep all its contents inside, and cleared his throat. "As I was about to say, your bag is going to rip."

Hermione's mouth turned up in the corners as she answered with a chuckle, "Yes, I can see that now." She adjusted her hold on the bag and the books inside it, and quietly added, "Thank you."

Lucius was staring down at her as she fussed with her torn bag. It was a hopeless cause and he knew that she knew it, but she kept her eyes on the bag. It was hard enough for her to thank him at all but he could see it was even more difficult for her to look at him while she did it. He bit his jaw together and nodded wordlessly. Although he had never actually harm her personally during the war, they had been on opposite sides, and he knew that was enough to put this awkward wall between them. It was the only reason why anything even remotely civil between them felt uncomfortable and foreign. He couldn't let the stillness go on any longer. "No, stop, give it here," he scolded her as she fumbled with the bag of books. Lucius lifted it from her hands and drew his wand, shrinking the entire bag along with the books down to the size of a small coin purse. He tucked it into his cloak pocket and shook his head. "You'd think you were trying to make the hole even bigger with whatever it was you were doing," he mocked.

"That's easy to say when you have a wand, Malfoy." Hermione shot back. He may have thought nothing of chipping away at Ron with those reporters, but there was no way in hell she was going to let him do the same to her.

The wizard raised an eyebrow in surprise at her quick response and couldn't help but wonder how many times his son had gone back and forth with her like this during their time at Hogwarts. His face darkened and Hermione thought for sure he would come back at her with some ridiculous statement about muggle-borns being somehow inferior to purebloods, but he didn't. His mind was suddenly elsewhere and even as he opened the door for her, she could tell he wasn't thinking about his actions. They stepped onto the street and Lucius offered her his arm.

Hermione looked at it and knew he wouldn't give it unless they were going to apparate somewhere, but it wasn't even dark yet. "Where are we going?" It was only a short walk back to the Leaky Cauldron, so there was no point in using apparition to return there.

"Have tea with me." He replied. It would have been a question, but his tone didn't match.

"Where?" She questioned. She had only agreed to go to the bookstore, and now he was trying to change their deal.

Lucius shook his head, realizing what she thought, and added, "In private. You said you wanted me to help you with your problems, did you not?"

Hermione had been so focused on the bookstore that she had nearly forgotten all about that part of their arrangement. "Well yeah, I was just surprised we're starting so soon."

The wizard with her shrugged. "There's no reason why we shouldn't." Hermione tried to think of one, but couldn't. So for the second time that day, she placed her hand gently on his forearm.

XXX

They apparated to Malfoy Manor, to the familiar library Hermione had discovered the night before. Lucius walked over to the couch and sat down just as a loud pop broke the stillness in the air. The tiny house elf who had healed Malfoy appeared by the library's door. There was a small silver tray in its hands with two tea cups and a matching teapot in the middle. The elf walked over and set the tray down on the coffee table in front of the couch before beginning to pour tea into each cup. Hermione watched, still standing where she had landed. Once the cups were full, the elf nodded in Lucius's direction—somewhat of a bow, and disappeared with another pop. Malfoy lifted his cup but paused as he noticed Hermione hadn't moved. He motioned towards the other end of the couch. "Sit."

He had only glanced at her before returning back to his tea, but Hermione knew he had probably already taken note of her hesitation. She was unsure of why they were there, but she had never been shy about vocalizing what was on her mind. "So how are we supposed to do this?" Hermione asked and Lucius could hear the lack of enthusiasm in her voice already.

Malfoy brought the teacup up to his lips and blew on it softly. He had some knowledge of muggle psychology, as limited as it was, and remembered something about the patient lying on a couch while the doctor asked general, open-ended questions. With a short shake of his head, he assured her, "Whatever you're thinking, you're probably wrong." With one more puff of air over his tea, he took a sip and placed the cup back down on the table in front of them. "We're going to play a game. The only rules are that you must wait your turn, as will I," he brought his left leg up over his right, connecting the ankle of one to the knee of the other and settled into his corner of the sofa. "And that no matter what, you must tell the truth," Hermione's head immediately turned to him, but before she could argue, he added again, "as will I."

"Tell the truth about what, exactly?" Hermione's suspicions had risen just as he knew they would. He was, after all, an ex-death eater and enemy to the Order. She had no reason to trust him, let alone give him any sort of power over her.

"Anything and everything. You decide." He began and reached for his cup of tea again. "We each get five questions, to start with. Depending on how this first…session, I guess we could call it. Depending on how things turn out, the number of questions we each get can increase over time." He rested his lips on the rim of the cup and drank down another little mouthful of the warm liquid. "Five questions for you and five questions for me, in which we both must answer honestly. We'll alternate, that way you cannot ask another question until you have answered mine, and vice versa. There are no rules on what can be asked." He paused and looked up at nothing in particular, as if searching for something. "What is it the muggle psychologists always say? This is a judgement-free zone?" Not fully satisfied with his knowledge of muggle lingo, he looked over at Hermione for reassurance. She nodded and Lucius nodded back. "Then that's exactly it. A judgement-free zone. Any questions before we begin?"

Hermione was about to shake her head but then a thought came to her. "Can I be the first to ask a question?"

Lucius looked down at his tea as he thought for a second before nodding. "I don't see any harm in that. Go ahead." He took another sip from his cup as he mentally prepared himself for whatever Hermione was about to throw his way. He honestly couldn't even begin to guess what she was going to ask him.

Hermione wasn't even sure what she wanted to ask at first. She sat with her teacup between her hands with her elbows resting on her knees, her body leaning forward as she thought of what she wanted to know about the man beside her. Finally, it came to her. "Why did you join Voldemort in the first place?" She could think of a few reasons he may have joined up with the dark side, but it wasn't hard to believe that Malfoy was once just like her, in the position to go either way, except he had chosen the path she swore she would never understand.

Malfoy leaned back against the sofa and smiled. "Not quite what I was expecting, but I suppose that's a good enough question as any. I sided with the Dark Lord because it was the only sensible option at the time. My peers had chosen to join, and I had been approached a few times by colleagues and social acquaintances. I was promised nothing but good things by joining his ranks. It was as simple as that." Hermione nodded. It was an answer she had expected but at least it confirmed that he had not been forced into it like some other death eaters. She wasn't sure what that information meant exactly, but it was good to have. "My turn." Lucius announced almost playfully and asked, "What were you most afraid of during the war?"

It was a question Hermione should have known was coming. After all, his goal was to help her return to some state of normalcy so it made sense for him to want to first find out what had terrified her the most. "A lot actually. I suppose if I had to choose, I'd have to narrow it down to my parents. I was so worried about them being targeted, or used as bait." With a quick gulp of tea, Hermione added, "They don't know anything about the wizarding world except what I've told them. My time at Hogwarts, my friends, my classes and teachers; things like that." She was happy with her answer and knew that by adding in that her parents knew nothing, she was also protecting them. If Lucius ever did pair up with the wrong side at any point in the future, he would know that interrogating her parents for information would be pointless.

She could tell Lucius was already beginning to think of what to ask her next, but he simply nodded and fell silent as he waited for her next question. It took another moment or two of thought before she inquired, "Once you realized how absolutely mad he was, why did you stay?"

It had been something Malfoy asked himself a dozen times as the years went by, but he still took in a slow breathe as if to map out his response in his head before he actually spoke. "He was a terrifying man. Not even a man, really, but that didn't matter. In fact, that probably made him even more horrifying now that I think about it. Every time he died, he would come back. He had no moral ground to stand on, and exhibited his strength and control on a regular basis." He paused to bring his teacup up to his mouth once more before asking his second question. "Were you not afraid of dying during the war? It's only natural to have a fear for your own safety."

Hermione shrugged and realized how Gryffindor-like her answer would seem, but she promised to answer honestly and as far as she could tell, Malfoy had been doing the same. "At first, yes…" she admitted, then continued, "but Harry was willing to die for everyone, for people he didn't even know, just so the world could be safe from Voldemort once and for all." She gave a little shrug and wrapped her hands around her warm teacup, staring down at the drink aimlessly. "So I knew I shouldn't be afraid either. It was all for a greater good." Again, Lucius's eyes seemed to fade as his mind wandered away from their conversation to ponder over everything she had just said. So far Hermione couldn't see how talking about her parents and Harry was going to help her with her problems, but they were only two questions in. Perhaps he just needed some backstory first, before he could gauge how much help she really required. Hermione knew what she wanted to ask next; it was somewhat of a response to how he answered the last question. "If you were so scared of him, why did you let Draco take his mark?" As the words came out, she realized how badly it could have sounded. She didn't mean to take a jab at his parenting skills, but she couldn't help but think it sounded that way once the question was actually vocalized.

If Lucius had been offended, he didn't show it. Instead, he took a deep breath and again allowed his eyes to drop down to his cup of tea, vacantly staring off as his mind roamed around for the appropriate answer. "There was nothing I could do. The Dark Lord wanted my son and there really is no way of refusing." Lucius glanced at Hermione and caught her staring at him. Backtracking over his answer, he continued with his reply. "I could have taken my wife and son and just deserted it all, everything. Yes, I could have done that, but they would have found us with time." A soft smile, almost defeated in its appearance, crept on Lucius face as he admitted his reasoning. "It may sound mad, but it was actually safer to just stay put and hope for the best. While in the Dark Lord's ranks, we had a shot at survival, a chance. If I were to leave, or my son, we would have been as good as dead." He watched as Hermione nodded wordlessly. He was sure she could understand, and yet he knew that she would have been one of the few brave ones who actually tried to leave. Hermione along with the rest of the Order wouldn't have stuck around just because it was safe, not when Voldemort was committing all sorts of injustices around them. But that's exactly it; Lucius wasn't a part of the Order, and he certainly would never think to compare himself to the young witch beside him, and Hermione understood that part of it. Then came the question Hermione had been waiting for. "If you're not afraid of dying, then what are your nightmares about?"

Hermione took in a deep breath until she could feel her lungs could hold no more air, and then let it out slowly. Her hands tightened around the cup. Every time she had thought about explaining her dreams to her mother, she was always left confused as to how to begin. Her mother knew nothing of the war, of the conflicts Hermione had faced, and how horrible everything turned out to be. In the history books Hermione had read, every war always seemed so clean, choreographed in a way. Yes, there was blood and death all around, but reading it on a page and actually living through it was something entirely different. She had no way to explain all that to her mother, so she never did. Yet, as she looked at Lucius sitting on the sofa, sipping away at his tea, she knew he too had experienced the darker side of the war. If anything, the ex-death eater must have witnessed even more than Hermione did. Surely he would understand. "The war," she began with a general answer, then realized Lucius already knew that one. "Sometimes my friends would die, Ronald mostly. We were together for a large chunk of the final battle. We had each other's backs and although we came out alive in reality, in my dreams that's never the case." She shrugged and lowered her voice, "Everyone always dies." Her hand had started to tremble and although it was barely noticeable, when she lifted her cup, she could see the tiny ripples in her tea as it splashed against the sides of the cup. She lowered the cup to the safety of the table and elaborated out of sheer determination to calm her nerves. "Besides that, I dream about torture, blood, Voldemort of course… all the typical things you would think of when remembering the war."

"I understand." Lucius assured her with a single nod and Hermione returned it. She knew out of anyone, he would be able to see what she saw every night in her dreams. Lucius kept his eyes on her as the room fell silent, but he still continued to wait for some unknown reason. Hermione knew her question had been answered to the fullest; she couldn't tell what he wanted her to say, so she said nothing. Instead, she reached out for her cup and took a quick sip, feeling the uncomfortable sense of eyes on her every move. She glanced at Lucius from behind her teacup. He was smiling. "Remember that feeling." He pointed a long finger in her directly and Hermione froze, unsure as to what he was actually referring to. "That one, right there." His smile widened and he flicked his eyes down to her cup before returning to her face. "The next time you feel anxious or overwhelmed, use whatever you just did to calm yourself." Hermione glanced down at the teacup in her hands. She hadn't realized he noticed her little tremble moments earlier. She had made it a point to lower it quickly so as not to draw attention to her shaking hands, and yet somehow Malfoy had caught sight of it. He had seen the determination on her face as she steadied herself, composed herself, and Hermione knew that was what he was talking about. She nodded. "Good." Lucius flashed his smile once more before letting it fade back to his usually cold demeanor. "Choose your next questions wisely. You've only got two left." He warned, returning back to their little game.

Hermione had been keeping count, but she honestly had no idea what she wanted to ask this man. She had never really thought about it until now, so her questions all seemed to stem off of his previous answers. "You said you couldn't leave, and Draco, but your wife never took his mark, did she?" Hermione knew Bellatrix was one of the few female death eaters, if not the only one, but she was curious how Narcissa managed to stay unmarked when the rest of her family were all in Voldemort's service. She had kept herself safe somehow, by surrounding herself with those who were not safe. Hermione still had no idea how the woman ever allowed her precious baby boy to join Voldemort. It was like sending a lamb to slaughter, she must have known that, but Hermione looked back over at Malfoy and realized what he had said before must have been true. They had no control over what happened, even with their very own son. If Voldemort wanted Draco, he was going to have him.

Malfoy looked disappointed with her question and brushed it aside quicker than she had hoped. "She was never offered a mark, so she never took it." It was simple and made Hermione wish she had worded it differently, so as to get more out of him, but her answer was had and she was only allowed one question at a time. Lucius moved on to his own question, "You mentioned torture. I assume Bellatrix was always in your dreams, correct?"

It was a fair enough question and Hermione agreed. "For the most part. Sometimes it was other death eaters though. Greyback, Wormtail, or just anyone hiding behind a mask were typically involved." Her mind began to wander back to the image of Greyback bent over the mangled body of Lavender Brown, but Hermione shut it out before it could go any further. "Greyback had always bothered me in a way."

Lucius made a low noise of approval as he finished the tea he was in the process of drinking. "He had a talent for _bothering_ people, the filthy animal…" Malfoy let his words trail off before gesturing towards Hermione with a shrug of his shoulder, "And your final question? Make it good."

Hermione frowned down at her cup. She knew what she wanted to ask, but wasn't sure if it was appropriate or not. He had said she could ask anything, but she felt like this was too private. As the silence grew, Hermione caught Lucius raise an eyebrow with a jerk of his head, as if to ask what she was waiting for. She swallowed one more sip from her cup and let the words go. "Your wife and son aren't living in the manor anymore. What happened?" She knew she had been gone for a couple years, but she was sure that they had both came out of the war alive.

Lucius breathed in deeply through his nose and Hermione could tell that her question had caught him by surprise. "We left after the war, and when I decided to return, they did not."

Hermione examined him, knowing there must have been more to the story than that. "You're lying. You promised you'd play fair."

"I am playing fair," Lucius snapped back suddenly. "My son had said that this rehabilitation the ministry was offering was just a way to round us up, to throw us back in Azkaban. He made the decision to stay hidden when I told them I was returning to the manor." His thumb ran over the edge of the teacup gently. His voice lowered, quieting down to just barely above a mumbled whisper. "My wife stayed with him, naturally."

There was a twinge of resentment in his tone. Hermione pressed, "Where are they?"

Malfoy looked over at her, as if he had just realized she was still in the room. "I don't think I need to remind you of the rules, Miss Granger. You've had your five questions." He knew she hadn't forgotten the rules and he didn't plan on wavering from them at any point. "For my final question…" he paused and thought carefully before finally settling on a good enough one to ask. Malfoy gulped down the last of his tea and for the first time in their whole conversation, shifted in his seat so that he was staring directly at her. No glances, nor glares, just solid eye contact and no matter how much Hermione wanted to look away, to break their connection, her determination kept her eyes locked on his. He scanned over her face for another second and finally asked, "Have you had nightmares about me?"

Out of any question, that was the one he had picked and Hermione didn't know how to respond. If she was going to stick by her word and keep things completely honest, then her answer was absolutely yes. But it would be awkward, to admit that he terrified her so much in the past that it was now haunting her current dreams. He didn't star in her nightmares often, but she could remember them all vividly. It was always an adaptation of her time spent in his home, but instead of Bellatrix torturing her, Lucius did. Hermione broke their eye contact and shifted down to her walking stick. It was resting against the side of the sofa and she stared at it, entranced. Before she could calm herself, a flashback of one of her dreams popped into her head and she could feel herself tense involuntarily as she remembered the way he had used that very tool to beat her. In a way it was worse than just using the cruciatus curse, or any other form of magic; it was more personal and just like all her other nightmares, it felt so real. Hermione closed her eyes and rode out the last of her flashback. It was short, and ended just before she opened her eyes, but she could still feel her heart racing in her chest. Her eyes fell back on his face, avoiding the sight of his walking stick all together this time, and she could remember his words earlier. _'Remember that feeling. Use it.'_ Hermione felt the anxiety beginning and knew that her quicken pulse was one of the first steps. If she was going to calm herself back down, now would be the best time. She willed herself to put all thoughts of the flashback, the nightmare, behind her and instead forced out an answer. "Yes, I have."

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><p><strong><em>AN: Not a whole lot going on in this chapter, but I've always been fascinated by the mentalpsychological aspect of things, so this was fun to write. Be sure to review to let me know what you think!_**

****_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Author's Notes: I'm surprised at how short this chapter turned out to be, but I guess they can't all be pages and pages long. Anyway, I hope I haven't disappointed anyone with this story so far. Be sure to review to let me know what you think!**_

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><p>Chapter 9<p>

"I see," Malfoy replied after a brief moment of thought. He held a seemingly satisfied grin that made Hermione regret answering with the truth. Lucius stared at Hermione and leaned in just a fraction closer; the grin had faded but Hermione could still see it dancing through the blacks of his eyes. His voice lowered to just above a growl as he asked, "Does that mean you're afraid of me, Miss Granger?"

She thought of slapping him. She thought of spitting in his face, or simply ignoring his question all together, but when she thought of how all those different scenarios could possibly play out, she knew that they would all only make her seem weak in one way or another. She needed to meet him head on. Hermione straightened her back and crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't think I need to remind _**you**_ of the rules, Malfoy. You've had your five questions." A similar grin sprouted across her lips, enough to match his own, and Hermione knew she had nailed his tone down to a tee.

His eyes narrowed as he recognized her wording immediately as his own. "Ah, so I have." He answered coolly and leaned back against his corner of the sofa. His brows rose when he spotted the time on the clock across the room. It was later than he had expected. "It'll be getting dark soon. We need to leave now if we plan on getting your wand back tonight." Lucius stood before pausing to look back down at his mudblood guest. "How do you feel?"

Hermione shrugged. She didn't feel any different from when they first arrived and she certainly didn't feel all cheery and normal. "The same I guess."

Lucius lingered on her face a moment longer, searching for some unknown element, before nodding once and beginning to straighten his robes where small wrinkles had begun to set while he sat. "I need you to do something that may be very difficult for you." Hermione watched him, curiously waiting for him to continue, suspicious of what he needed from her. Lucius drew his wand and offered her his other arm. "I need you to listen to me. If I tell you to stay somewhere, or do something, just trust that my reasons are justified."

Hermione's brows crinkled together as she frowned, pressing her back teeth together with the disapproval of his request. "You know I can't do that, Malfoy. You already have me wandless, virtually defenseless; where I place my trust is my last real form of protection."

"I'm not taking you to some silly quidditch match, Miss Granger. The type of people we may come across tonight aren't easy to rationalize with. If I am to escort you safely, I'm going to need some flexibility on your part." He tried to explain the need to her, but he could tell before he even finished that he was fighting a losing battle.

The young witch stood from the sofa and shook her head. "I gave you my answer. It won't be changing. I'll be the judge of when exactly I can trust what you say, and when I can't."

Lucius chewed at the inside of his bottom lip as she spoke. He responded with a warning glance and a blunt remark. "For your own sake, let's hope your judgment doesn't leave you when it's needed the most."

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><p>They arrived in what appeared to be an old plot of deserted farmland. The foliage had been left to take over and that it did. The plants and weeds had grown so tall that Hermione thought it resembled a corn field more than whatever else had once been grown there. She would have thought it was just a piece of open land but the thick mud beneath them left her to believe this was no ordinary soil. The mud was everywhere, the irrigation system working at its finest even after years of neglect, and as they began to walk, she could feel the wet, sloppy earth splash up off her shoes and onto the bottoms of her pants. She made a mental note to use a quick cleansing spell as soon as she got her wand back. Lucius stopped in front of her and dropped his voice to a low hiss. "I need you to stay close to me. Don't speak to anyone and try not to look so…" he looked her up and down, searching for the right words, before finally settling down with, "out of place."<p>

Hermione grimaced. "How else am I supposed to look? I'm standing in the middle of…" she raised her arms and motioned at the various plants and growth around them, "this."

Lucius all but rolled his eyes and instead repeated, "Just stay close and don't say anything." They started walking again, pushing the various plant stalks out of the way and trying to keep the mud below their knees. It took a few more minutes of travel before Hermione began to hear voices and noise. She couldn't see where they were coming from, but she knew she could definitely hear a collection of very human sounds off in the distance. Lucius slowed his pace until Hermione was beside him. They stepped forward together and as if the entire scene was covered with an invisible force field, a community of sorts came into view. The plants and farmland had been cleared in this large circular pattern with smaller circles branching off at the edges. In those smaller units were merchants with their collection of trinkets and wares. The center, large circle had been left empty for the visitors to roam through freely from merchant to merchant. Hermione's eyes darted all around at the area that had suddenly appeared in front of her. Lucius bent his head down to the side of her head and explained in a hushed tone, "Within a few nights time, all this will be gone. They'll move on to another undisclosed location and all that will be left here is what muggles like to call crop circles."

Hermione smiled. "Crop circles…that's brilliant."

Malfoy couldn't help but return the smile discreetly, "The black market hasn't lasted as long as it has on pure luck. Among us unsavory folk, there are a few truly bright minds at work." He straightened up and started towards one of the merchant stands. "That's the one we need." He was staring at a seemingly bare stand. There was a short, plump young man sitting comfortably in a rickety old chair. He looked bored, sitting behind his empty table with a beaten-up book in his lap.

"He doesn't have any wands." Hermione noted, feeling her anxiety start to rise as they entered deeper into the center of the black market's circle. She tried to focus on what she was feeling and tried to push it back down inside her. "You've got the wrong man." She groaned quietly behind Lucius.

"He does have wands." Lucius shot back before hushing her over his shoulder. They approached the young man's table and Lucius cleared his throat until the man looked up. He truly did look bored, paying Malfoy no attention except a short glance before dropping his eyes back down to the book. Lucius scowled impatiently at the younger wizard's clear lack of respect. "I've come for a wand."

The merchant asked with an air of disinterest, "Anything you can tell me about this particular wand or am I just going to have to start guessing?"

Hermione watched as Malfoy grit his teeth together and noticed the muscles tense along his jawline. He bent forward and brought his palms down on the table top with a loud thud. "Ten and three-fourths in length. Vine wood. Dragon heartstring core. Anything _else_?" Lucius's voice rose towards the end as his attitude began to slip away from him.

The wand dealer stared Malfoy down and closed his book before catching a glance at Hermione from behind Lucius's right shoulder. His face softened as he skimmed over her intriguingly. "And who does this specific wand originate from?"

"Ollivander, don't play stupid." Malfoy snapped, bringing the man's eyes away from Hermione and back to him.

Obviously offended, the stout man crossed his arms and leaned back against his chair. "The previous owner," he clarified his question.

Malfoy lifted his hands off the table and dusted the dirt from his palms. "It doesn't matter. Do you have a wand like this or not?"

Hermione watched as the man pretended to think, a finger pressed just below his bottom lip as he made a soft, "Hmm," sound. "Nope, I'm afraid I don't have anything of that sort. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for it though." The sarcasm oozed through his pores with every word.

Lucius was about to react, respond in some outlandish way, but Hermione spoke out from behind him. "He's lying, I know he is!" Malfoy extended his arm out in front of her in an effort to silence her, to remind her of his prior instructions.

The young wand merchant clenched his hands over his chest and groaned, "Ugh, you wound me, witch. You really do." He lowered his hands and grabbed his book from his lap, laughing all the while at his theatrical performance. He had just barely begun flipping through the wrinkled and torn pages when Lucius reached across the table and grabbed the front of his shirt. "What the he—,"

Malfoy yanked the smaller man onto his feet, causing the chair to be kicked over backwards in the scuffle. They were nose to nose and although Lucius had the man pulled almost completely over the small table, Hermione didn't see any of the other merchants paying them any mind. Either disagreements of the physical sort were a regular occurrence, or none of them cared enough to interfere. There were a few sideways glances from the other customers but overall, no one seemed to mind the confrontation. Hermione wondered if they would have reacted differently if a duel had broken out instead. "Whoa, whoa man! Let's just settle down and handle this like gentlemen." The merchant held up his hands and tried to talk Malfoy down.

"The time for that has passed, boy." Lucius shook the man once roughly and demanded, "Where's the wand?"

"I told you, I don't have it anymore."

"_Anymore_?" Hermione asked as she watched the two men struggle with one another.

The chubby little man looked at her hopefully and nodded enthusiastically, but Lucius shook him again, forcing the merchant's eyes to dart back and forth between the wizard throttling him and the seemingly innocent witch with him. He knew he would get more sympathy from Hermione and tried to keep her as his main focus as he explained with another series of hurried nods. "Yeah, yeah! As soon as I got it, it was sold the next night. Or was it the night after that?" The wizard looked up into the night sky as he tried desperately to remember the details.

Malfoy shook him again, snapping him back to reality. "Who was the buyer?" He questioned, tightening his grip on the man's shirt until the collar tugged against his throat harshly.

He shook his head wildly and held up his hands again. "I don't know, I swear. He was wearing a hood and I couldn't make out his face that well."

Hermione cut in, suspicious of the man's answer. "Do you always accept such shady people as customers?" She questioned.

The man's face twisted as if she had just asked the most ridiculous thing in the world. "Take out all the _shady people,_" he made tiny quotation marks in the air with his fingers as he repeated Hermione's words, "and I wouldn't have a business." He turned to Lucius and shrugged with disbelief towards Hermione. "Who is this lady anyway?"

The blonde wizard released the merchant, carelessly sending him backwards until he toppled over the overturned chair. Without a second glance, he turned away from the man and hooked Hermione's arm by the elbow as he pasted her. "He doesn't know anything," he grumbled and pulled her away until she finally began walking on her own, which wasn't without a struggle.

"But he must know something! You barely even asked him anything," Hermione insisted, pulling her arm away from Lucius and stopping where she stood. She pointed back at the merchant who was returning to his feet and pulling the chair upright. "He must know something about the person he sold it to! You don't just buy things completely anonymously like that. That's ridiculous!"

Lucius stopped with her and corrected, "Yes, we do. In case you hadn't noticed, this isn't Flourish and Botts or Honeydukes. Business is conducted differently for a reason." He lowered his voice in the latter sentence, beginning to notice some of the other merchants glancing in their direction. They may not care about rumbles over business arrangements but if they caught wind of any potential exposure of the black market, Lucius knew he and Hermione couldn't keep their safety guaranteed much longer. He pulled his face closer to Hermione's and growled, "We're leaving, now." His arm extended towards her as he waited for her to grasp it, and he muttered, "This is one of those times when you really need to just shut up and trust me." Hermione scowled at his wording. No one told her to shut up, least of all Lucius Fucking Malfoy. His eyes darted off to the right side quickly before turning back to Hermione and she followed them to see what he was silently gesturing towards. A few of the merchants off to their right had gotten to their feet and held their hands steadily over either their trouser pockets or the pockets of their cloaks. In any other situation, a group of strangers standing with their hands loosely draped over various parts of their body wouldn't have alarmed her, but as she took a closer look, she realized that each and every one of them were holding their hands at the ready over their wands. Her eyes returned back to Lucius and he shook his arm towards her again, mouthing out the words, _"trust me."_ Hermione took his arm.

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><p>There was yelling and she could hear people calling over to them as she grabbed onto his arm, and the last thing she saw was a flash of light before she felt herself being transported away from that black market community in that deserted field. When they stopped whirling through the chaotic zone known as apparition and her vision finally cleared, she realized they had landed back in Malfoy's library. He was standing next to her and appeared to be unharmed, but she was sure she had seen the distinct flash of a spell just as they were leaving. The adrenaline rush of the whole situation was intense and it was only when they returned to the quiet, peaceful library, that she realized just how fast her heart rate was. The way it throbbed and fought against the confines of her ribcage made it feel like her heart was going to explode out of her chest. She took a deep breath but it only seemed to make the pounding worse. The blood pumped through every vein, every artery and Hermione swore in that moment that she could feel every single drop as it travelled from her chest, up her neck, along the sides of her face, and all throughout her scalp. Before she could brace herself, the rush of blood to her head overwhelmed her and a wave of woozy vertigo hit her like a train wreck. She lost her balance and toppled over, eyes fluttered closed, onto the library's floor.<p>

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><p>"Finally," She heard his voice before she saw his face. It wasn't actually his face that she focused on first, but his eyes. They stood out like two icy crystals against a flesh-colored pallet. Her lids felt heavy and she wanted to go back to sleep but just as she began to blink her eyes closed again, she felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. "Not yet. You can sleep all you want afterwards."<p>

Hermione's brows crinkled together as she pressed her eyes open once more, focusing again on his piercing blue orbs. "After what?" she asked quietly. Suddenly a finger came between her face and his and stayed there until she narrowed in on it. It gradually slid from the center to the left, pasted over the center and continued on to the right, then returned to the middle. She followed it on its journey.

He dropped his hand. "You fainted," Lucius announced. She was lying on the couch with her head resting against a pillow that she didn't remember seeing there before. At first she thought that Lucius was kneeling beside the sofa but something made her doubt he would ever lower himself below a mudblood, no matter what the situation. Upon further investigation, Hermione realized that he had dragged the small coffee table closer to the edge of the couch and was using it as a make-shift seat as he studied her current state. "You don't seem to be injured," he mumbled as he continued to watch the way her flushed face reacted now that she was awake. "I thought you had hit your head on the table for sure, but I think you just missed it by that much." He held up his right hand with the thumb and index finger held closely together, but not quite touching. With the same hand, Lucius pointed towards the side of her neck, a couple inches below her ear and added, "Just a little scratch."

Still lying with her head against the pillow, Hermione pressed her fingertips against the spot where he was pointing and felt a tiny sting of superficial pain, much like the feeling of a paper cut than an actual injury. She pulled her hand away and used it to push herself up into a seated position. As her perspective of the room shifted, she caught sight of something out of place on the floor in front of the sofa. It looked like an oddly-colored dust bunny but knew Malfoy would never be caught dead with any dust or dirt in his home, let alone his precious library. Her eyes squinted as she tilted her head closer to the floor. It was a familiar brown color but it was only when she noticed the slight curve of the bushy little curl that she realized what she was looking at. "My hair…" she breathed and reached down to pick up the severed lock.

Lucius nodded and stood from the coffee table, pushing it back into place with the side of his calf. "Like I said, it was very close." Hermione held the piece of hair between her finger tips, twirling it around as she stared down at it silently. Malfoy walked over to his desk where the silver serving tray sat with a fresh pot of tea and two new cups. He poured himself a cup and then filled the second one before returning to the sitting area with them both. "If you would have just listened to me in the first place without arguing, that'd still be on your head." He passed her the tea cup and sat down at the other end of the sofa. Hermione frowned down at the lock of hair and didn't say a word. It wasn't like her and as little as Malfoy knew about the little Gryffindor sitting next to him, he knew that she would never pass up any opening for a heated debate with a Malfoy. He took a sip of his tea and waited for a reply, but none came. _'Perhaps she's the type of witch who would absolutely die if she got a bad haircut, or had a bad hair day,'_ he thought to himself and shrugged. Narcissa had always been meticulous about her hair, and the hair of the rest of her family. From the time Draco sprouted his first few little blonde wisps, his mother was always fussing to make sure it stayed in place and looked presentable. As the silence grew longer, he took another quick drink from his teacup and mumbled, "It'll grow back." He didn't know why he said it, but the way she sat so quietly next to him made him want to get her talking even more. It was as if she was challenging him, without even realizing she was doing it. "You know, I hear short hair is making a comeback among the younger generations." He was really stretching now. He had no idea what was stylish with the witches and wizards of the current generation of youth, but he couldn't seem to stop himself from trying to make meaningless conversation.

"I could have died tonight." The hair was still twirling between her fingertips but as Malfoy heard her words, it was obvious that her ruined style wasn't what was on her mind.

He nodded with a little raise of his eyebrows. "Yes. We could all die any night. You could have a magical convulsion right here and you wouldn't even see it coming." He wasn't trying to make her feel any better or any worse, but instead just stating the facts as he saw them.

"I know that." Hermione replied quickly, slightly offended that he would say such a blatant statement as if she was too dense to know it already. "I mean, if it had been just a little bit closer, or if I had waited a second longer, I probably would have died." In that moment, he thought for sure she was going to thank him. He thought she was going to somehow justify her still being alive to something he had done. Yes, he had apparated them away from that field, but he was the reason she was there in the first place. He had taken her there because he said that her wand could be found with that black market merchant. He sat back and drank his tea, waiting for her to suddenly confess her thanks and gratitude for saving her life, but as he took a sip, and then another, he realized it wasn't going to happen. She was too bright for such nonsense.

Lucius looked down at the teacup in her hands and noticed she hadn't even taken a single drink. "You're traumatized. It's normal. You were thrown into an entirely unfamiliar environment, surrounded by odd strangers, and then forced to flee under dangerous circumstances." He swished the tea around in his own cup, watching the liquid spin around like his own little whirlpool between his hands. "The fact that you may or may not have died tonight doesn't help, but it's important that you stop to think about what you're feeling right now. Are you hurt?"

Hermione pressed her brows down to her eyes and shook her head, "No." She had a small cut on her neck but she really couldn't say she was hurt or in pain.

"Are you dead?" Lucius asked. Hermione shot him a glance and when she didn't answer, he did for her. "No, you're not. And you're not in danger at this moment either. So there's really nothing left for you to do except keep living, is there?" Hermione took in his words but Lucius could see that she wasn't sure what to make of them, or him.

She couldn't see what his point was, but she had a guess. "Is this your way of helping me with my anxiety problems? Because if so, I don't think it's working."

He grinned and a soft chuckle escaped his lips. "No, I'm just," he paused and shook his head, "trying to make conversation." Hermione nodded, still unsure of how they had gone from only spending time together when Lucius wanted a public record of it, to having tea in his library at who knows what time of night. He remembered her wand and decided a change in subject was in order. "Who would want your wand?"

"No one, that I know of. I don't have any enemies except enemies of the Order in general." She replied.

"That doesn't exactly narrow it down," Lucius groaned. It could have been any death eater looking to target one of the Golden Trio, or honestly anyone just looking for a replacement wand with a clean record. "I'll ask around, but it may take a while. It's much easier to find the wand merchant than to find the actual wand once it's already been sold." She nodded, already having guessed that their task of finding her wand had been made more difficult. Lucius downed the rest of his tea and yawned before standing from the sofa. "It's late. You're free to take a room for the night, otherwise I'm sure my house elf would be more than happy to escort you back to the Leaky Cauldron. She's always enjoyed getting out of the manor for some reason."

Lucius walked towards the door and grabbed a book off a nearby shelf on his way. Hermione hadn't even thought of how late it was or where she was going to sleep. If she was being completely honest with herself, after everything she had been through tonight, it made her feel better knowing that even though she didn't have her wand yet, she was with someone who did have a wand and for the most part, hasn't used it against her for years. She just wished that person wasn't Lucius Malfoy.

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><p><strong><em>AN: Alright, let me know what you think because reading your reviews and seeing how you guys likedislike the fanfic always brightens my day. (Even less-than-positive reviews make me happy as long as they're constructive!) With any luck Chapter 10 will be posted within the next few days. I hope you enjoy!_**


	10. Chapter 10

_**Author's Notes: Thank you for all the reviews! I really enjoy reading them all and seeing how everyone is enjoying the story so far. Just a little warning that the next few days for me will be a bit chaotic, so Chapter 11 may take a little longer to get up. But I have already began writing it, I promise :P**_

___**There isn't as much excitement in this chapter as I'm sure some of you would have hoped, but I feel like it was a real necessity to place this part right here and leave it off where I did. Let me know what you think. Any theories for what's going to happen next? Let me know in your reviews!**_

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><p>Chapter 10<p>

The morning came sooner than she had expected and although she couldn't say her night was peaceful, her nightmares had weakened slightly. With a long yawn, Hermione stretched her body to almost the full length of the bed, contorting and twisting until she heard just the right amount of pops and cracks. The air was cool, refreshing, and it felt good against her warm morning flesh. Whether it was the massive amount of blankets she always insisted on sliding underneath every night or the reminisce of hot sweat that her night terrors always seemed to produce, she had become accustomed to waking up overheated. With a few strategically placed kicks, the top covers were thrown off her and hung halfway off the foot of the bed. Left with only the soft bed sheet covering her thin frame, she pulled it up over her shoulders, snuggling two handfuls of the soft fabric under her chin, and fell back to sleep.

XXX

Without a clock to assist her, the final time Hermione awoke left her oblivious to how late in the day it actually was. As her bare feet touched down on the icy cold floor, she scanned over the room for her socks. _'I could have sworn I just left them on the floor,'_ Hermione thought quietly, checking the bathroom, the bedside table, under the bed sheets, and even the walk-in closet. They were all empty, free of everything except the bare drawers and shelving units. As she walked back out of the closet, she spotted the large wooden armoire against the wall across from the bathroom. The giant piece of furniture had slipped her mind entirely, much like the bedside table would have done if she hadn't whacked her wrist on it as she tossed and turned during the night. It had two tall doors on the front which Hermione tugged open. Nothing except a row of empty hangers swung inside. She closed the doors and squatted in front of the lower portion of the armoire. There were two drawers, fixed with two brass handles on each one. The top drawer slid out easily, revealing Hermione's pair of missing socks. They looked so neat and tidy, folded tightly and sitting at the bottom of the drawer all alone. They looked crisp and as Hermione reached in to pick them up, they didn't have that used, dirty feeling to them anymore. She brought them up to her nose and sure enough, they smelled of fresh laundry. _'Someone washed my socks," _Hermione noted, narrowing her guesses down to the only plausible culprit; Malfoy's house elf. She shrugged and unfolded them before slipping them onto her cold feet. They still looked overly neat, perfectly shaped almost, and Hermione couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle. _'And she ironed them!'_

XXX

The silence of the hallways felt eerie and wrong as she roamed the manor. _'A place this big shouldn't be so empty,' _Hermione concluded, not liking the way her footsteps echoed throughout the whole wing no matter how softly she walked. She had no idea where she was going, having only spent a short amount of time in the Malfoy home, but she knew if she just kept going, she would find something of interest eventually. Thirteen minutes passed before she heard a pop in front of her and stopped just in time before crashing into the small house elf. "Oh, good morning." Hermione smiled. "I was beginning to think I was the only one here."

"Afternoon," the frail little elf corrected with an innocent curve of her lips. "You," she pointed a boney finger towards Hermione's chest and asked, "lost?"

"Oh, no." Hermione lied. "I was just stretching my legs, exploring a bit." She grinned again and the house elf nodded, but just as she was about to speak, Hermione's stomach grumbled loudly.

The elf pointed again, this time at Hermione's belly. "Hungry?"

Hermione blushed and rested her right hand over her navel. "I guess I am," she shrugged with a short laugh. There was no chance of fibbing this time. The elf took Hermione's hand in her own petite palm and apparated them with the snap of her fingers. The room they travelled to was easily recognizable; it was the same enormous dining hall Hermione had entered the last time she visited the manor. The elf guided her over to the table and pulled out a chair. When Hermione sat down, before she could even ask what there was to eat, Lucius stepped through the doorway on the other end of the room. "So someone does actually live here," Hermione called over to him from across the long table and the row of empty chairs.

The Manor owner strode over to the table and leaned the heels of his palms against the back of one of the chairs. "You're one to talk, sleeping the day away. You decided to stay, I see. I trust you slept well?" He was, of course, referring to her nightmares.

"'Well' isn't the word I'd use, but yes, better than expected at least." Hermione admitted. "I woke up a couple times but I don't think I was making any noise this time." She looked at the elf that was still standing by her chair for confirmation, and the elf nodded silently.

Lucius tilted his head in understanding and replied, "Good." His eyes shifted to the house elf and instructed, "Leave us." Without hesitation, there was a pop beside Hermione's chair and the tiny creature vanished.

Hermione felt her stomach give a growl of protest. "I haven't eaten anything yet," she informed him with a frown.

As if he had planned it, Malfoy took the opportunity to stare down the table at her and offer confidently, "Come to lunch with me then."

"Where to this time?" Hermione asked with a groan. She was hungry, that much was undeniable, but she was growing tired of being put on display every time she stepped out in public with the blonde ex-deatheater. She felt like a puppet and it was getting old.

Malfoy straightened up, lowering his hands away from the back of the empty chair and cupped them together in the small of his back. "The ministry," he explained. "I have a probationary hearing this afternoon, and I'd appreciate it if you were there." He was trying his hardest to sound polite but having not had much practice over the years, it came out flatly, as if he were reading off a piece of paper.

Hermione squinted with a short shake of her head, "Why do you need me to go to the ministry when we've already taken over the Daily Prophet's entire gossip section? That's overkill, don't you think?" she questioned.

His shoulders rose and fell as a sense of indifference swept over his face. "Moral support?" He raised his eyebrows and cocked his mouth into a smirk, knowing just as well as she did that he had no morals for her to even begin to support. "We can eat first, where ever you'd like," he tried to sweeten the deal in her favor, but he knew unless he produced her wand to her in that instant, he had nothing of interest to offer her anymore.

"Fine. I choose to eat here." She stabbed at the deep-stained table with her index finger and raised an eyebrow, waiting for his response.

He had promised her they could eat anywhere she wanted, and he was, after all, going to be dragging her out to the hearing with him. He knew he couldn't push her any further, not without a new bargaining chip to use. "Agreed." Lucius walked down the row of chairs until he was standing behind the one directly across from Hermione, and sat down. The house elf appeared again, as if alerted automatically when her Master sat down at the empty table. She appeared by his side and made a motion towards the tabletop, causing a large bowl of salad to materialize between them. To the right of the salad was a tray of thick sandwiches, cut on the diagonal and pierced with long, colorfully decorated toothpicks. To the far left were two cupcakes, iced in chocolate buttercream that made Hermione's mouth water. Hermione thanked the house elf right before she vanished again and Lucius glared across the table at her. "She likes you," he mumbled as he began placing a pile of the salad greens on his plate. "She even asked how long you would be staying." He rolled his eyes, remembering how the elf had approached him earlier than morning.

Hermione was surprised, but pleasantly so. She had enjoyed the time she spent with the house elf, as brief as it was, and could tell she had a sweet heart within her skinny little chest. Hermione didn't feel nervous or out of place around the house elf, and after all her outings with Lucius lately, it was a relief to feel calm with the elf. "Oh?" Hermione questioned. Lucius passed the salad tongs to her and she filled her own plate with the refreshing appetizer. "And what did you tell her?"

Lucius lifted his fork and took a few jabs at the green leafs in front of him. "I told her to ask you. I take it she hasn't?" Hermione shook her head and Lucius shrugged. "I assumed she wouldn't." They fell silent until Lucius spoke again a few minutes later. "Have you thought about what questions you'd like to ask this time?"

She had almost forgotten about their little game the day before. "Of course," she lied and took another forkful of salad into her mouth. It took a moment but after she swallowed, she asked in return, "Why? Have you?"

He wasn't sure whether to believe her or not, but as she turned the question back at him, he was confident in his reply. "I've given it some thought."

XXX

"What are they having a hearing for? Have you been accused of a crime?" Hermione asked as she stood in the entrance hall. Malfoy was standing a few feet away while his house elf meticulously straightened his robes, plucking off any loose threads and ensuring he was looking his absolute best. She had to stand on a little wooden stepstool to reach his chest and shoulders and Hermione waited, watching the amusing scene unfold before her. No wonder he always looked so well-manicured all the time.

Lucius lifted his chin as the elf's tiny hands tugged at the collar of his shirt, fixing the top button so it lay perfectly flat against the fabric. "No. If I were even accused of a crime whilst on probation, I'd be sent to Azkaban. The hearing is just an excuse for the ministry to check up on me, keep tabs, and question me without probable cause." His eyes stiffened at the wall across from him as he spoke of the ministry. "Rather intrusive if you ask me. I've committed no offenses since the end of the war. You'd think that would count for something."

He was talking more towards himself, a moment of pointless ranting just to get it all out before he had to face the ministry and hold his tongue, but Hermione took it as an open forum. "You're lucky they didn't just kill you or lock you away for the rest of your life. You don't think it matters what you've done in the past?" She wasn't outraged by his statements. After all, it was Lucius Malfoy she was talking with, but it bothered her to hear him speak as if he were completely innocent. He may not have been one of the absolute worst death eaters, but he was loyal to Voldemort and fought against everything that was just and right in the wizarding world. There's no running away from a history like that, no matter how long he planned on staying clean.

Malfoy shifted his eyes over to her, keeping his head straight so as not to disturb whatever the house elf was currently adjusting. He held his jaw firm as he stated flatly, "I believe anyone has the ability to change."

Hermione didn't believe him. She couldn't, not without forgetting who this man was. She had experienced through his son just how strong his prejudices were and knew no one like him could ever truly change. "So you're telling me that you have no ill feelings towards me because of my parents?" She took a step towards him and curled her face into a twisted mess of disbelief and bitter doubt. "You no longer believe I'm a _**mudblood**_?" She spat the word out as if it tasted of slime and ash, offending her delicate pallet with the very first syllable.

His mouth lifted to one side as he gnawed at the inside of his cheek. He pushed the house elf away, nearly knocking her off her wooden stool, and thrust his arm out to Hermione. "We're going to be late if you continue with this bickering. Think what you will of me but I will **not** jeopardize my standing with the ministry because you want to _chat_ about hurt feelings and name calling." His tone was firm, almost how she imagined he may have scolded Draco as a child, only harsher.

She was about to continue, insist he either apologize for all his previous judgments and hatred towards muggle-borns, otherwise she would know his words meant nothing, but she knew if he didn't know up to the hearing on time, they would sent ministry officials to come claim him. Normally, she wouldn't mind seeing Malfoy being carried off to Azkaban, but he was the only one who knew how to help her get her wand back. She could go to Harry, beg him to forgive her for hurting them and abandoning them, then ask him to help her find her wand, but it was easier to just avoid all of the emotional scarring she had caused and use Malfoy instead. "We'll get back to this when we return." She informed him with a satisfied grin and grabbed onto his arm.

XXX

They apparated right outside the doors of the ministry. Before entering, Malfoy ran his hands down the front of his robes one last time, fixing any wrinkles and grazed his fingers loosely through his hair. It fell back down behind his head beautifully where he willed it to stay until the hearing was over. Hermione followed him as he walked through the winding hallways, obviously knowing exactly where he was going out of practice. "How often do they hold these hearings?" She asked.

Malfoy raised and dropped his shoulders carelessly. "Typically only once a month, however I've been called in at random when they need information." He shot her a glance and added, "I have no say in when they're held. I'm just told to either attend, or go to Azkaban."

Hermione nodded as they continued walking, stepping into an elevator. It didn't seem fair, for the ministry to keep him hanging on a string like that, but just as her mind began to allow those thoughts into her head, she pushed them out with the memories of how many lives he may have ruined over the course of his service to the Dark Lord. She had no idea what he had done in Voldemort's name. 'Whatever he had to deal with now was his own fault,' she concluded silently. The elevator went down for what seemed like an unusually long period of time before coming to a stop. She began to breathe heavier and bit her lower lip as the door slowly slid apart. There would be a lot of people there. Judges, members of the ministry, quite possibly the minister of magic himself. Or maybe there would be no one. Maybe these hearings weren't important enough to command a large audience and she was only working herself up for nothing. She took in a deep breath to steady herself but as she began to exhale, she felt a hand slip into her cold, clammy palm. Her eyes shot down to it, then followed the arm back up past Lucius's shoulder and up to his face. He was staring at her and she wondered how long he had been looking at her. "Remember to stay calm," he advised and Hermione realized he had noticed her start to tense and panic. She swallowed hard and nodded. She was stronger than this; stronger than this weak, pathetic anxiety attack that was threatening to boil over inside of her. She pushed it to the back of her mind and just focused on the court room ahead of them. Lucius squeezed her hand gently and bent his head down to her ear. "There may be people you recognize. They won't speak to you during the hearing; it's against their code of conduct while in the courtroom." He explained and Hermione listened, trying to drown out the sound of her throbbing heart with his words. "Are you listening to me?" he asked with more force. "They can't harm you. You're only here as an observer and when we leave, they won't follow you. You can relax."

"I **can't** relax." Hermione corrected him, trying to control her breathing but finding herself in a losing battle.

Malfoy let go of her hand and placed both of his palms on each of her shoulders, facing her head on. "Yes, you can." He insisted, forcing his words onto her almost as much as he did with his fingers as they held her in place in front of him. "This is your personal space, right here. No one will come into this space, for any reason, and if they do, you have every right to tell them to fuck off." Her eyebrows lowered as he swore. She couldn't remember ever hearing him use such crude language, but that's what he wanted. It's what she needed to hear at the time for it all to sink in. "Can you breathe?" He asked. She dragged in another deep breath and pushed it out carefully before nodding gently. "Are you dead?" He asked, just as he had done the other day when they were in his library. Hermione's eyes narrowed while one of his eyebrows rose, waiting for the answer.

"No, I'm not," she choked out with a newly found thrust of determination in her voice. She knew what was coming next, knew what he was going to say, and as his hands finally lifted off of her shoulders, she willed herself to slow her breathing, to drag in the air at a normal pace no matter how much her lungs wanted to gulp it all in. She was not hurt. She was not in any immediate danger. And she was not dead and this morbid sense of reality seemed to be the only thing that would force her to control what she was feeling, no matter how nervous she was getting.

The corner of Malfoy's mouth twisted upwards as he saw the recognition on her face. She was beginning to calm herself and he finished with the words she knew he was about to tell her. "So there's really nothing left for you to do except keep living, am I right?" He took a step away from her and crossed his arms over his chest. She smiled back and nodded. His grin faded as he tilted his head towards her with approval and added, "Just remember that and you'll be fine. Trust me."

They started walking down the long hallways into the courtroom and Hermione released a long breath of air pushing away the intensity she was feeling with every step. She was strong, stronger than this, and she was determined to prove it. Her eyes flashed around the room at the ministry officials all already seated on their high chairs in front of the stand where Lucius was meant to sit. She scanned over their faces quickly, recognizing a few but surprised at how many were new. Apparently there were more death eaters in the ministry than she had known about years ago, and now they had all been replaced with new workers. She kept skimming over the seats, this wizard, that witch, another couple wizards, followed by a few more witches. She was just about to move past the next man when her eyes darted back to a man in the second row. His ginger hair stuck out from underneath his floppy wizard hat and even though his eyes were trained on her with such interest, his mouth slowly rose into a weak smile. "I can't do this," She turned to Malfoy quickly and struggled to keep her voice hushed. "Take me back to the manor. I can't do this." She pleaded.

His eyes bore into her the same way everyone else in the room seemed to be staring at them. He glanced around the room with a reassuring smile and turned back to Hermione. "Just remember what we just talked about. No one will bother you and it'll be over before you know it." He chuckled and added, "If anything, I should be the one worrying. Merlin only knows they're about to grill me for some ridiculous reason this time." He tried to hold onto his smile as long as he could, for her sake, but after a few awkward moments, he let it go. He grabbed ahold of her hand once more and guided her over to the section reserved for public observers. He helped her up the steps and let go of her hand only when he was sure she was actually going to sit down instead of bolting out of the room. The doubt in her eyes made him nervous but with everyone watching them, there wasn't much else he could do except hope for the best. She sat in the back, behind a pair of witches with oversized hats. It was completely ridiculous, she knew, but somewhere in her method of madness she had hoped that she could hide behind their headpieces and not have to look at Mr. Weasley. With some rare form of luck, as she settled down and actually looked around the room, she realized that one of the large pillars in the center of the room completely blocked off her view of the red-haired father of seven, meaning he also could not watch her in return.

Hermione watched as Lucius left the audience section and stepped down into the center of the courtroom. It was designed specifically so he was below the rest of the room, all eyes on him. He strode over to the stand and took his seat coolly, ignoring the rest of the room and only focusing on the small group of ministry officials who would be questioning him directly. "Good day, Minister. I hope you're doing as well as you seem."

The minister of magic nodded in approval of Malfoy's inquiry but didn't actually answer. He was too busy shuffling through a stack of papers and directing the rest of his workers on how the hearing would begin. They all stood, everyone in the room, and then sat down again after a brief welcoming from the ministry. No one remained standing except for Malfoy. He was instructed to hold up his wand hand and recite a series of vows and oaths, mainly addressing the fact that he promised not to lie and agreed to answer as clearly and fully as possible. From then on, the rest of the hearing became somewhat informal. "I trust you've been keeping yourself out of trouble, Lucius." The minister began.

"Of course." Malfoy answered, as if anything else was simply impossible.

"Yes, yes…" The minister waved his hand as he searched for a particular piece of parchment among the numerous pages in front of him. Finally finding the one he was looking for, he cleared his throat and read from the paper. "Peter Pettigrew. You've said he is deceased, yet you still claim you can not produce a body. Have you changed your stance on the matter at all since our last discussion?"

Malfoy lifted his chin at the minister's assumption that he would have a new answer today. "I'm afraid my answer remains the same. I have no knowledge where his body was laid to rest, however I am confident that he was killed even before the end of the war." He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair as if tired of their questions already.

One of the wizards sitting beside the minister leaned in and whispered something to the head of the ministry, earning a few 'Ah's and a 'Yes, of course.' The minister nodded and pulled away from the man to face Lucius once more. "You seem to be mingling well with the general public, particularly people of linage different from your own. Care to share how that's going?"

Lucius nodded and straightened in his chair. "Of course. It's going swimmingly, thank you."

The room fell silent, waiting for Lucius to elaborate, but he didn't. He was done speaking and the minister frowned at his lack of forwardness. "Care to share a little more, Mr. Malfoy?" His words made it sound like a question but there was no denying that the minister wasn't asking Malfoy, but demanding.

With a sigh of what appeared to be either boredom of simply arrogance, Malfoy complied. "You're referring to my muggle-born acquaintance, Miss Granger?" He nodded before anyone confirmed his accuracy. "We enjoy each other's company and share a mutual interest in a platonic relationship." There was a buzz of whispers throughout the room but out of the corner of his eye, Lucius watched Arthur Weasley send a note floating gently down to the minister's table.

The minister unfolded the message and read it quietly before asking Malfoy, "And how has Miss Granger come to form this relationship with you?"

Malfoy tried his hardest not to criticize the minister directly. It would only hurt him, however he felt no harm in confronting the source of the minister's question. "As I've just said, Mr. Weasley, it's mutual." He narrowed his eyes on the red-headed wizard in the second row before turning back to the minister. "I can assure you, I have no interest in forcing a young woman to do something she doesn't want to do." It was so quick, she had almost missed it, but just as he finished his sentence, Hermione thought she had seen Lucius glance up at her before quickly looking back at the minister. A few of the people in the room accompanied him in looking at her, but Hermione tried not to look at them. It would do nothing for her nerves except excite them and she wanted nothing more than to completely forget she had nerves at all.

"Of course not, Lucius." The minister reassured him as he shuffled through more papers. "Let's not make this hearing into one of the Daily Prophet's gossip articles, agreed?" He shifted his eyes over the room, as if to warn any other ministry workers that questions about Hermione would no longer be heard. "Moving on…" He began, searching for another piece of parchment. "Ah, yes," He plucked the paper from the stack in front of him, except it wasn't just a single piece of parchment. It was a folder, containing a rather large amount of reports, files, and anything else they could fit on the dimensions of a standard sheet of parchment paper. He flipped over the cover of the folder and laid it out on the table in front of him. "We'd like to ask you a few questions regarding your knowledge of the VRS." Lucius seemed to perk up, straightening in his seat and lowering his hand away from his face as he began to pay closer attention to the minister's words. "The Voldemort Retention Strike, also known as the VRS has been brought to the ministry's attention as of late and given your previously close ties with Voldemort and his inner circle, it is our belief that you may have some knowledge to share with us." He paused and studied Lucius's reaction before warning, "We have Veritaserum on hand, should we feel you need some assistance with your answer. I don't think I need to remind you what the result of you lying on the stand would be." Hermione could only guess if Lucius lied at this hearing, he would get a one-way ticket to Azkaban.

Lucius leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yes, I've heard of the VRS." The room erupted in noise, Ooh's and Ah's spreading over the crowd before the minister could grab his gavel to silence them. Once the minister returned the room to order, Malfoy continued. "It's true. I _have_ heard of it, but it's really nothing more than a pathetic attempt to bring together some form of a misfit gang. I don't see it going anywhere." His bored expression returned and although his body still looked tense, it was beginning to slowly relax.

"Let us be the judge of that, Mr. Malfoy. All you need to do is answer our questions." The minister replied. "Who is said to be organizing this 'misfit gang' as you called it?" He asked with a quill in his hand as he waited for Malfoy reply.

He was sure to be disappointed. Malfoy shook his head and answered, "It's unclear from what I've heard. Then again, I have only had brief encounters with this organization, so naturally I know close to nothing at this time." His eyebrow rose as a thought came to his mind. "However, if you need someone to infiltrate this group, I'd be your best option."

The minister brushed aside Malfoy's offer with a wave of his hand. "No, no, nothing of that sort. However we will need you to explain where you were on Saturday night. For the sake of your probation, the quicker we can disassociate you with any recent crime activity suspected to be related to the VRA, the better."

Lucius raised his chin and answered quickly, "I had spent the evening with Miss Granger. But I was under the impression we were no longer going to discuss her, unless I misunderstood?"

"Yes, of course." The minister agreed with a nod. Again, the room turned to Hermione to silently examine and judge her as she sat quietly in her seat, observing the hearing with a growing interest. The minister closed the folder and placed it on top of his stack of papers before standing. "Thank you for your time, Lucius. We appreciate your cooperation." The rest of the room stayed seated as the minister made his way down off his section of the raised seating. "I'll be sure to have your probation officer sign off on this hearing before you leave." Lucius nodded as the minister left the court room and only then did everyone else rise from their chairs.

A few ministry officials approached Lucius, one holding a sheet of parchment and a quill, which Lucius took and signed. They exchanged a few words before letting Lucius leave the stand and return to where Hermione was still sitting. "You see? Over before you know it. The minister hates to drag these things on when he knows he'd rather be elsewhere just as much as I would."

Hermione was about to speak, to ask if all the hearings he was called to were similar to today's questioning, but just as she stood from her seat, Mr. Weasley walked up behind Lucius. "Malfoy." He greeted the blonde wizard flatly before turned to Hermione. "Hermione, I didn't expect to see you here." The head of the Weasley clan always seemed so happy, but as he stared at Hermione, she couldn't help but notice the tension between them. She didn't know if she was the only one who felt it, but if Mr. Weasley did, he didn't show it. "On behalf of Molly and I, we'd love to have you over for dinner tonight."

Lucius took a step towards Hermione, taking away Mr. Weasley's attention as he answered, "Actually, I believe Miss Granger and I had plans for this evening. Perhaps another time."

"I wasn't asking you, Malfoy." Arthur snapped, glaring at the blonde wizard before returning back to Hermione with a gentle smile. "Some other time then. There's always room at the table for you, should you change your mind." He waited until Hermione nodded in understanding before he left with the rest of the room's occupants.

Hermione ran a hand over her forehead and dragged it back into her hair with a heavy sigh as Mr. Weasley stepped down from the public observation section and out of the courtroom. She looked back at Lucius who was staring at her quietly. "Can we just go already?" She was snippy and he could tell it was a direct result of her sudden encounter with Arthur. He looked her over and noted that for the most part, she had remained calm. Her breathing was quickened, but not to the extent that she was gulping down air like water. No matter how little it seemed to be, it was still progress. He nodded and they left the courtroom on their journey back to the Manor.

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><p><em><strong>AN: With any luck, hopefully I've perked up some of your interests a little with the contents of Malfoy's hearing. Any guesses on what's going to happen next? The next 3 to 5 chapter are crucial, so stay tuned! As always, thank you for reading and reviewing. I appreciate every bit of feedback I receive. :)<strong>_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	11. Chapter 11

_**Author's Notes: Another semi-long delay in updating, but hopefully you'll enjoy this chapter. Lots of new info so be sure not to skip this one! Don't forget to review after you've read! It really does make me smile :) Enjoy!**_

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><p>Chapter 11<p>

"You should have told me he'd be there." Her tone was steady with the slight sting of disappointment, though she really couldn't understand why. Lucius had no obligation to warn her of who would be present, and she didn't bother to ask, and yet she still felt like he should have at least given her a hint to prepare herself.

Ever since they had returned to the manor, Hermione hadn't said much. Lucius had apparated them straight to the library—their newly claimed mutual space, and banished his house elf away almost as quickly as she had appeared. As soon as she left, the blonde-haired wizard strode over to his desk and lifted a thick glass bottle from the bottom left drawer. He continued to produce a short, wide glass before popping open the bottle and pouring himself a drink, when Hermione's words caught him mid-stream. He paused, allowing the liquid to roll back into the bottle smoothly, and lifted his eyes from the glass to the young witch standing next to his couch. "I didn't know he was going to be there." Lucius replied firmly before beginning to fill his glass and setting the bottle down on the desk in front of him.

Hermione shook her head, still standing beside the sofa with no intent of sitting. "You're a liar, Malfoy. You knew he'd be there and you just wanted to see how I'd handle it." Her eyes fell to the floor for a quick second as she remembered Arthur Weasley's response to seeing her. She glared back up at Lucius and added, "Or maybe you were hoping for a scene in front of the whole ministry. One where you could be the _hero_ again." Her tone made a mockery of the title that both of them knew he had never earned.

He watched as she crossed her arms over her chest and listened to her words with what appeared to be a hardened ear. He had heard it all before. According to the entire wizarding population, to some degree or another, he was a liar, a cheat, a ruthless businessman, and most of all, a death eater. No where in his profile had the word 'hero' ever appeared; at least not until the night he found Hermione and returned her to the wizarding world. Lucius lifted the glass and swallowed the drink with a sharp tilt back of his head. It burned on the way down and he snarled as he lowered the glass back down to the desk. "You wouldn't believe me even if I said I wasn't lying, so there's really no purpose in this conversation at all, is there?" He began to pour another drink when he realized she was still standing. He glanced in her direction and motioned towards the bottle. "Did you want one?" Hermione shook her head and Lucius carried his glass over to the sitting area, leaving the bottle on the desk. He took a seat on the couch and eyed her as she didn't follow suit. "You know, you can sit and still be angry. You might as well be comfortable as you pout." He pulled the drink up to his mouth with the last of his words.

"I'm not _pouting_." Hermione corrected him immediately, carefully lowering her arms to her sides in a more neutral stance. She felt awkward, still standing beside the sofa, but didn't want to sit now that he had mentioned it. Instead, Hermione stepped towards one of the bookshelves and aimlessly skimmed over the titled as she explained, "But it would have been nice to at least get a warning that he would be there."

Lucius rolled his eyes and repeated, "For the second time, I didn't know who was going to be there besides the minister and my probation officers." He shrugged and added, "I'm surprised you're not more upset about Potter seeing you."

Hermione snapped her head away from the book in her hands and back at Malfoy. "What are you getting at? Harry wasn't there."

One of his eyebrows rose as he asked, "Scrawny little thing, scar right about there?" He made a jagged movement over his forehead as he sarcastically described the famous Boy Who Lived. Hermione frowned and Lucius nodded. "He wouldn't take his eyes off me the entire time."

With a shake of her head, Hermione asked, "Why would Harry be there? That doesn't make any sense."

Lucius held up a finger and corrected her. "Actually, it does. His position with the ministry permits him to attend any hearing or trial he wishes. Though I don't know for certain why he chose to sit in on my hearing today."

"I do." Hermione stated. When Lucius raised his chin in interest, she smiled and explained. "I'm like a sister to him. If I kept refusing to talk to him, I should have known sooner or later he would start checking up on you." Lucius titled his head slightly to the side and Hermione knew he didn't understand. It almost made her laugh, the way he had no idea of Harry's motives. The closest thing Malfoy had to a sister was Bellatrix Lestrange, and Hermione couldn't imagine them having a relationship even remotely similar to the friendship she had with Harry. She suppressed a soft laugh and tried to simplify what she was trying to say. "It's because you're spending time with me. He wants to make sure you're an okay guy." Hermione paused and realized her mistake. "I mean, he knows you're not of course, but that's even more reason for him to keep a closer eye on you."

Lucius slowly nodded, ignoring her last remark about his poor moral standing in the eyes of the wizarding society. "He's protective of you," Malfoy replied and Hermione agreed with a silent smile. He took another sip from his glass before deciding to down the rest of his drink in one go. As he leaned forward to place the empty glass on the small table in front of them, Hermione could smell the strength of the drink on his breath. "You know the rules. Five questions each, alternating turns, and under no circumstances is lying allowed. Agreed?" Hermione agreed and Lucius added as he leaned back against the sofa, "You can go first if you'd like."

Hermione took in a deep breath through her nostrils. She hadn't actually made it a point to think about what questions she wanted to ask, but over the past day or so she had thought of a couple in particular. "Your house elf," Hermione began. "What's her name?"

With a chuckle, Lucius smiled and asked, "Are you sure you want to waste one of your questions on something like that? You could have just asked her yourself."

"It's not a waste! House elves are just as important as we are. If they weren't suppressed and enslaved by witches and wizards for thousands of years, who knows what incredible feats they could do? They could be productive, key contributors to today's society, if only given the chance. They could rea—,"

She would have continued with just as much passion and conviction in her voice if Lucius hadn't raised his hand to stop her. "Her _name_," he interrupted, "is Mimbi. I acquired her after an old friend—her previous owner, had died during the war." Hermione was about to question him further when she remembered the rules. Malfoy cleared his throat and asked, "How are your books?" Hermione hadn't expected that question and as she hesitated, Lucius added, "The ones you purchased yesterday. How are you liking them?"

Hermione curled her lips into a grin and asked, "Weren't you the one who had just warned me about wasting questions on silly things like that?"

Malfoy rested his elbow against the sofa's arm and pressed his index finger against his temple as he watched her. With a similar twist of his mouth and a small shrug, the wizard replied, "I'm waiting for your answer."

"Well, I haven't finished them all yet," she began. "I still have two left that I've been saving for last. I'm trying to space them out so I don't run out of things to read." She played with her fingers as she explained her reasoning. "Back home, I didn't like leaving the house sometimes, not even to visit the bookstore or the library. You'd be surprised how dull the days can get when there's nothing new to read."

With a glance around the room, Lucius stated, "As long as you return them in a timely manner, you're free to borrow any books from my collection." He had become so accustomed to having everything he wanted, what with all his wealth and long line of privileged ancestors, that it struck him as odd to think of anyone having to hoard away something as simple and common as a book.

"Oh," At first Hermione didn't know whether he was teasing her or being sincere, but as the silence between them lengthened, she realized he was being honest. She didn't know how to take his offer and wasn't even certain that he knew how kind he was being. All she could think to say was, "I will, thank you." With a small tilt of his head in reply, Hermione knew that part of their conversation was over and it was now her turn. She didn't know what she wanted to ask until right before the words left her, but it had been nawing away in the back of his mind ever since the hearing had ended. "The rules of the game state that neither of us can lie at any point in time, for any reason." Lucius lifted his head away from his fingertips at her seemingly random statement and nodded as he watched her curiously. Hermione swallowed and tried to sit up just a hair straighter as she collected her thoughts into a carefully formed question. "You lied during the hearing," she spoke as if she was reading aloud from a textbook; nothing but facts. Then came her question, "At the very least you weren't being fully honest. What did you not want them to know?"

She knew before she had even begun speaking that the chances of him lying to her right then were extremely high. Given their past, and his overall shady history, she had no reason to believe a word he told her, but she tried anyway. Lucius lowered his forearm down against the edge of the sofa and looked over at his empty drinking glass as he ran over his options in his head. He could lie, which was his first gut reaction, but then another idea came to him. "Do you remember the other rule?" He asked and Hermione frowned. The one that had stuck out the most was that no one was allowed to lie, but as she sat and tried to recall from her memory what other rule he was talking about, she knew he was going to find a way out of answering her question. She shook her head, frustrated, and Lucius leaned towards her, pressing his forearms against the tops of his thighs. "Everything that happens here, our questions, our answers, are confidential." He smirked and his voice lowered as he added, "And all rules do have consequences when broken."

Hermione's eyes narrowed as she glared at him in disbelief. "Are you threatening me, Malfoy?"

The way he stared at her, silently, with that satisfied smirk planted across his face screamed 'YES!' but when he finally spoke again, his voice had returned to his usual polite tone, matched with a charming smile. "I'm simply reminding you of the rules. Do you still want me to answer or would you like to choose a different question?"

As he stated her two options she thought of what he was really saying. Either she could listen to his answer, however illegal and morally corrupt it may be, and keep it between the two of them, or she could ask a question that she knew wouldn't produce such a controversial answer. But then of course, there was her third option, the one Lucius had only stated between the lines. She could break the rule. She could listen to whatever horrible claims the ex-death eater had, and then go tell the authorities. As Malfoy so generously reminded her though, there would be a cost if any rules were not followed. She swallowed again as the answer finally came to her. "I'm waiting for your answer, Malfoy."

His smirk faded away as he leaned back into his spot on the sofa. He had expected her to change her question but as his eyes fell over his face, he could see she was still trying to decide whether or not she would actually keep her word. It had turned to a deadlock, only to be resolved by what his answer actually was. He lifted his chin and took in a deep breath. "Fair enough. Where did we go on Saturday night, Miss Granger?"

Hermione frowned when he answered with another question. "You promised you'd answ—,"

"And I am. Now where did we go?" He insisted.

She crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. "We went for drinks before Ron cursed you."

Lucius grinned as he shook his head slowly. "No," he drawled, "That _lovely_ encounter happened on Sunday evening." He stood from the sofa as he corrected her and walked back to the desk to grab the bottle he had left behind. As he returned to the sitting area and poured himself another drink, he watched as the wave of realization washed over her face. "See, I told you I would answer."

"You used me to lie to the ministry!" Hermione exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how much trouble I could get into? How much** you **could get into! What am I supposed to say when a ministry official comes knocking at my door, accusing me of being an accomplice of yours?" He couldn't help but chuckle as he took a sip of his drink and listened to her concerns. "You think this is funny? How funny is it going to be when you're locked up tight in Azkaban for the rest of your life? Not so funny then!"

"I'm sorry but you really are overreacting." Lucius explained as he began to compose himself. "Are you always this serious? It's a wonder Potter didn't stay at Hogwarts and study day and night with your nagging." Hermione was about to respond when Lucius shook his head and continued, "It doesn't matter. By the time anyone of any real importance realizes it, it'll be marked off as a simple mistake." He rolled his hand around at the wrist and elaborated, "You had taken a very heavy sleeping draught that night and gotten your days mixed up. I, on the other hand, have been spending so much time with you that I had merely confused which evening I had spent with you. An honest mistake."

He smiled but Hermione still wasn't happy. "Except it isn't honest."

Lucius shrugged and replied, "A minor technicality." Bringing his leg up over his knee, he rested his hands on his shin. "Moving on," he began but paused as he thought of his next question. At first he had intended on saving it for one of his last questions, but the idea of not being able to ask follow-up questions made him change his mind. "When we left off last time, you had said I've been in your nightmares. Explain one of them to me." He grabbed the bottle and topped off his glass, knowing her answer would be a long one.

"That's not really a question," Hermione nitpicked, avoiding his request, but when Lucius shot her a glance and set his bottle back down on the table, she knew he wasn't going to change his question. She let out a heavy breath and thought of how to begin. First, she needed to decide which nightmare to tell him. It wasn't as if she had a massive amount of dreams involving him, but there were quite a few to choose from. With another steady inhalation, Hermione motioned towards his bottle. "I change my mind. I'll have a drink."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow and reached for the large glass bottle in front of them. "What's the magic word?" He teased as he stood to retrieve another glass from his desk drawer.

"Now," Hermione answered firmly. Malfoy stopped beside the desk and jerked his head back in her direction. She was sitting on the sofa with a cocky grin over her lips at her smart remark.

He returned back to the sofa with an empty glass in his hand, identical to the one he had been drinking himself. "Indecisive **and** rude," Lucius stated as he poured her a drink and handed it to her. "What lovely characteristics you Gryffindors have." He watched as Hermione took the glass from his hands and took a rushed gulp of the strong liquid. Her face contorted as it burned her throat on its way down and Lucius shook his head. "Keep drinking it like that and you'll be too drunk to even listen to my questions, let alone ask any of your own. Go on now; let's hear about this dream of yours." Lucius rested his elbow on the arm of the sofa and leaned his cheek against his knuckles.

With another small sip from her glass, Hermione began. "I guess this is the one that I remember the most of. We were at Hogwarts, during the final battle, and somehow we had all gotten split up. I could see Ron all the way on the other side of the courtyard, and thought he could see me too, but then I lost him. I got distracted looking for him and your crazy bitch of a sister-in-law grabbed me." The fire in her voice rose as the image of Bellatrix was brought out in her memory of the nightmare. She looked down at her covered forearm and knew it was still scarred with the ugly word Bella had carved into her years ago. Hermione looked away from her arm and stared down at the table instead. "She started choking me and I blacked out. When I woke up, I was lying in the courtyard. It was ruined, everything. Hogwarts had been destroyed by the battle and all I saw around me were piles of bloodied bodies." Hermione forced her eyes closed and tried to keep her voice steady. The memory of her dream had taken her over and no matter how much she tried to keep it as objective as she could, she couldn't help but feel her hands start to tremble. She clenched them into fists to stop them from shaking and took in a deep breath before continuing. "They were my friends, students who had come back to fight, anyone I had ever met and cared about. A death eater was walking around, lighting the piles on fire…a quick way to clean up after winning the war." She shook her head as the thought of how wrong it all was struck her. "They were children," she breathed.

Lucius hadn't touched his drink since she started talking. In fact, he hadn't moved at all. He was fixed on her words and as she started to shake with whatever emotions she was feeling at the time, he knew she was seeing every single image she was describing to him. She sat with her eyes still closed and her head moving slightly from side to side and Lucius knew she was stuck. "And then what happened?" He asked gently.

Hermione opened her eyes. As she got caught up in what she was seeing and feeling, she had forgotten he was still there, listening to her. "I saw Bellatrix by one of the piles, shooting curses at the bodies and laughing. I don't know what she was doing but it bothered me even more than seeing them burning. She was messing with them…the bodies I mean." Hermione reached for her drink and took another sip to calm her nerves. "I was about to get up and stop her, hex her, do something, anything. I was so angry, but just as I got up from the ground, you kicked me."

"I kicked you?" Lucius asked, not sure how he had suddenly entered the scene, or what role he was supposed to play.

She nodded. "Yeah, in my side." Hermione ran her hand down the length of her ribs on her left side. "I collapsed back down onto the ground and you pulled me up by my hair. You called me a mudblood and started going on about how I had stolen the right to bare a wand from some pureblood or something completely ridiculous like that." Hermione waved her hand at Lucius and added, "Whatever it is you apparently think us muggle-borns have done to you. You dragged me away from the courtyard, into an empty corridor."

Lucius leaned in towards her and urged her to continue, "Why? What happened next?"

"You beat me." Hermione answered.

"I beat you?"

"Yes, with your walking cane." Hermione motioned towards the elegantly designed stick leaning against his side of the sofa. "There was some sort of magical force behind it because after a short while, I was knocked unconscious in my dream, and didn't wake up."

Lucius waited for more but as he straightened up in his spot on the sofa, Hermione didn't say anything else. "That's it?" Malfoy asked curiously.

Hermione frowned and exclaimed loudly, "What do you mean 'that's it?'? You beat me senseless! Isn't that enough?"

"I just assumed," Lucius began but stopped as he realized he had no idea what to say. "I don't know what I assumed, but for some reason I figured it would be more…" he searched for the right word. "Frightening."

Hermione pointed at his cane, particularly the heavy metal serpent head on the tip and dared, "Let's see you take a hit from that thing then and tell me it's not frightening."

Lucius lifted his drink to his lips one more time. "Are your dreams always so short?"

"That's two questions," Hermione reminded him with a smirk. With a reluctant nod, the wizard took one more sip as he waited for her next question. Hermione bit at the inside of her cheek as she thought— a subtle habit of hers that had taken Harry and Ron until almost their fifth year at Hogwarts to notice. She could feel his eyes bearing down on her and knew what she wanted to ask. "Do you really think this is helping me? These questions?" She looked down at the glass between her hands and swirled the dark liquid around gently. "I don't feel any different, like nothing's changed yet."

"Yet," Lucius repeated. "And my answer is yes, over time. The most damaging thing you could do is hold it all inside and not talk about anything that's bothering you. You've done that for the past couple years and look where that's lead you." It wasn't meant to sound as harsh as it did, and Hermione knew that Lucius realized it just as he finished his sentence. He turned to face her slightly. "Eventually, as the number of questions increases, this will become less of a game and more like a genuine conversation." He readjusted in his seat and added quickly, "At least that's the goal. It could backfire entirely and become more like a chore, but for now I don't think this is too excruciating, is it?" Hermione shook her head. "Good." A faint smile appeared on Lucius's face but just as Hermione thought she had spotted it, it disappeared and in its place was the flat, emotionless creases of his usually stone demeanor. "Same question as before; are your dreams always so short?"

Hermione shrugged before giving a small nod. "Well, yeah. They're not really dreams most of the time. It's like a collaboration, a mash-up of different nightmares all mixed together in this ongoing slideshow" She frowned as she tried to think of the best way to explain how they really were. "For instance, after the one I just told you about, not even a second later, I was at home with my mum baking cookies."

Lucius's face creased as he tried to understand how the two connected. "That doesn't sound like a nightmare," he offered.

"Oh, it wasn't at all." Hermione agreed happily. "It was lovely actually, but that's what bothers me about it. One minute I'm being beaten to death by a death eater and the next I'm safe at home with my parents. Then, before long, I'm back somewhere else, doing something entirely different. I can't remember what the dream was after I was baking with my mum. It was either another dream with Bellatrix or the one with Professor Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?" Lucius asked, not expecting to hear the late headmaster's name while discussing night terrors. "Don't tell me he was beating you as well. If so, I think I've gotten in well over my head. I'd have no idea how to even begin to explain that." He shook his head with a grin as he stared across the sofa at her.

Hermione laughed. "No, of course not!" Lucius's expression relaxed and Hermione explained. "It was the night he was killed. Harry's told me about it a dozen times before, but for some reason it's never like he says in my dreams. I'm standing a few paces away, watching, and it starts off alright. He talks with Draco," Hermione noticed an obvious stiffening in Lucius as she mentioned Malfoy's son but didn't acknowledge it. "Professor Dumbledore seems to be talking him out of it, and then the others step in. Professor Snape's with them of course, and Bellatrix. They're about to do it when a shot comes from the side and hits him square in the chest."

"Hit who?" Lucius stops her and as she sees the concerned look on his face, she can tell he thinks she means Draco.

"Dumbledore," she clarifies and Lucius swallows with a relieved nod. "I look around but I can't see who it came from. Everyone scatters of course, but I stayed there. I couldn't move. I watched Harry run after them, but once I was finally alone in the tower, I spotted who it was." She stopped and shook her head as she corrected herself. "I mean, I don't know who it was exactly, but I saw someone. He had a mask on, a death eater's mask, but I couldn't tell who he was. He was staring at me, and knew that I had seen him, but he didn't do anything. All he did was put a finger over his mouth," she mimicked the death eater's movements, placing her index finger vertically over her lips. "And then he left, like the others."

There was silence as Lucius tried to understand what her dream meant, if anything. He had no explanation and instead, asked, "You know that's not how it happened, don't you?"

Hermione nodded with confidence. "Of course."

"Severus killed him." Lucius stated flatly.

"I know that," Hermione insisted. "That's why the dream was so odd. If I could place a face with who the death eater was, maybe that would make more sense somehow, but his face is always covered."

His eyes squinted. "Always? You mean you've had this dream more than once?" He questioned. Hermione agreed and Lucius replied, "Is it always the same?"

She shrugged. "Most of the time. I've only had it three or four times, but it usually plays out the same way, with the same man. I can't figure out what it means. Maybe it doesn't mean anything."

Lucius picked up his glass and disagreed. "If you've had it more than once or twice, it must mean something. You'll figure it out eventually." He took a drink and instructed, "Only two questions left. Don't waste them on silly elves."

She didn't. It took her a moment or two to really think what she wanted to know, but when she found it, she knew it had to be asked. With one more dose of her strong drink and a newly found confidence, Hermione blurted out, "Tell me everything you know about the Voldemort Retention Strike." She could tell by the sudden look of discomfort that glazed over his eyes that he was thinking of a way to get out of answering. Hermione glared at him as she warned, "You might as well forget about lying. I'll see right through it and any chance of me trusting you again will be ruined."

He leaned in towards her and retorted sharply "You don't trust me now, so what difference would that make?"

"Just answer the question, Malfoy," Hermione replied. She knew he was right. Even if he did lie, would it really change anything?

Malfoy hesitated before downing the last of his second glass in one massive gulp. He dropped the drinking glass onto the table loudly and slid down the sofa from his corner seat to the cushion directly next to Hermione. It was unexpected and at first she thought he was going to attack her, he moved to quickly, but all he did was thrust his index finger towards her chest and threaten, "This doesn't leave this room, is that in any way unclear?" His face was inches away from her own and as his voice seemed to drop harshly to a low, authoritative tone, Hermione held her breath. She didn't answer; she just studied his face as it twisted into a snarl. "I said, is that clear?"

As if alerted to the seriousness of his question by the sharpness of his voice, Hermione tried to reply but all that came out was a hoarse, "Y-Yes."

He hesitated, read into her for a moment longer, before nodding and leaning back against the sofa, giving her back her space. He cleared his throat so as to return to his normal tone. "I didn't lie during the hearing, about the VRS," he began. "However I was holding information back." Hermione's face hardened as she nodded. She had already assumed he wasn't truthful with the Minister, not because he had given it away in any sense, but because she assumed he was always lying in some way. He continued, "They asked me where I was Saturday night, and I lied because if I had told them that I had a few drinks with members of the VRS, it wouldn't have been a particularly good answer." Hermione froze, her eyes locked on Malfoy's with her bottom lip hanging slightly lower than it had been only seconds ago. Lucius lifted his chin and answered her unasked question. "I'm not a member," he stated matter-of-factly. "Although it has been requested of me numerous times. In fact it's my firm belief that the only reason I was asked to join them Saturday was so they could get another shot at recruiting me." Lucius rose from the sofa, grabbing his empty glass and the bottle, and brought them back to the desk as he mumbled, "I refused, again."

Hermione's face twisted with confusion as her eyes followed him on his path around the room. She shook her head, "Why are you telling me this?"

Lucius dropped the glass and bottle into the bottom drawer and wandered back over to his original seat on the far end of the sofa. "You asked me what I know about the VRS, did you not? Aside from what you've already heard at my hearing, that is what I know."

"No," Hermione interrupted, "I mean, me. Why are you telling **me** any of this?"

"Would you rather I had lied to you? If I am not truthful with my answers, how will I know you are being truthful with yours? I don't make rules that I, myself, cannot follow."

She stayed trained on his eyes as she warned, "Your rules…they mean nothing." Her voice was beginning to betray her as she trembled over her words. She knew if he attacked her then, without her wand, she would be as good as dead, but she forced out her last sentence and hoped her tone remained steady this time. "I could tell the ministry."

"And will you?" His tone was too strange, unfamiliar. She had expected that same threatening ring to come clear through his words, but it didn't. Instead they sounded almost innocent, pure, and it didn't make any sense. He was tricking her; he had to be. Pitying her maybe into keeping her mouth shut, but as she continued to stare into his cold silver eyes, the last thing they held was room for pity.

Breaking her stare by taking a rather generous drink from her glass, Hermione announced, "It's your turn. What's your question?"

Lucius smirked and looked down at his hands lying together in his lap. "What did you think of the hearing today? Everything you expected it to be or were you disappointed that they didn't drag me away in shackles?" A teasing glare played over his face as he held out his arms with his wrists pressed together by invisible restraints.

Hermione rolled her eyes at his false dramatics just as he dropped his arms back down heavily to his sides. "I didn't really know what to expect. You sprang it on me so quickly and by the time we got there and I saw Mr. Weasley, I didn't really have enough time to think of the actual hearing." She shook her head and mumbled, "I still say you could have at least warned me that he may have been there, even if you didn't know for sure."

He pressed his brows downwards as he watched her with contempt. "I told you before that I didn't know he was going to be there. Besides, I assumed you knew that most of the hearings held at the ministry are open to any employees who wish to be present. He shouldn't have even been there actually. Last thing I'd heard, my hearing was set during his lunch hour. You'd think he'd use that time a bit more wisely." Lucius pulled his mouth back into a disinterested frown as he spoke of the red-haired wizard. Lucius rested his arm on the back of the sofa in the space between them and cockily added, "The ball's in your court, Miss Granger. Let's hope your questions are better than your answers."

His projected arrogance was a habit; she knew this from all the years she had spent with his son. Draco had the same heavy air around him and Hermione could only guess it was one of the many strong traits that ran down the Malfoy family line. The right corner of her mouth lifted into a less than impressed expression, but just as she thought of how similar the father was to the son, Hermione found her next question. "Is Draco a member of the VRS?"

Lucius held onto her eyes until he pulled them away, allowing his arm to slide off the back of the sofa and meet back with his side. She watched as his chest rose slightly higher and held onto the new air slightly longer than it had before. With one quick breath he pushed the offending material from his lungs and followed almost simultaneously with his reply. "I've already told you that I've had no contact with my son." His eyes were trained on some insignificant point in front of him and even as he spoke, they didn't break their focus on the unseen target of his stone cold glare.

"That wasn't my question." Hermione pressed. "Even if he hasn't corresponded with you directly, you must have heard something. When other members have met with you, they must have told you whether your own son had joined or not. I mean…he's your son after all." She shook her head as she refused to accept his answer as the truth.

As if sparked by her last statement, taking it as some allegation of neglect on his part, some failure in his duties as father to his son, Malfoy snapped at her. "And what of you then? You've been here how long, and I haven't once seen you try to contact your parents." His head tilted off to the side as he pressed his face closer between them, the cold glare still holding strong in his eyes. A sadistically motivated grin found its way over the lower portion of his face as he asked condescendingly, "Are they to think you've run off with some muggle cult simply because you haven't told mummy where you've been?"

Hermione scowled at his harshness. "That's different. I didn't know I wouldn't be coming home." She paused and knew he was right. She hadn't phoned home to at least let her parents know she wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere. Her heart began to weight heavy in her chest as the guilt became more prominent. She imagined how worried her mother must have been, and how uneasy her father would be feeling. She had been out of contact with them with long periods of time when she accompanied Harry and Ron on their hunt for horucuxes, but she had always given them fair warning and told them she was leaving. There was only so much she could tell her muggle parents, but at least she always told them something. This time, they knew nothing. She didn't know where she was, how long she'd be gone, or if she was alright and Hermione could feel a knot begin to form in her throat as this thought pressed its way into her mind. "Besides, I've either been locked away in my room at the Leaky Cauldron or here where I'm sure you wouldn't be caught dead with such a muggle invention like a telephone."

"Fourth floor, off the main corridor of the western wing," Lucius recited off a location unenthusiastically, "sixth door on the left." His eyes fell back down to that invisible area in front of him as he faintly added, "All you had to do was ask…even if I didn't own one, I could have found a telephone for you." Hermione felt foolish for not thinking of something so simple on her own. She had been so worried about her wand and so stressed from all the public attention that she honestly didn't stop to think that when she left, she left no sign for her parents to find comfort in. Obviously she knew that they didn't know where she was but somehow the actual thought of them worrying didn't occur. Maybe it was her encounter with Ron, and then Harry, the rest of the Weasley and everyone she had tried to forget when she left the wizarding world, but she knew she couldn't blame this on them. She stood from the sofa with every intent on finding that telephone and telling her parents that she was safe, she was sound, and they need not worry about their only daughter anymore. But just as she got past the small coffee table in front of them, Lucius called over to her. "I still have one question left. It wouldn't be fair for you to get all five and me to only get four," he explained.

"You've asked questions on top of questions today, Malfoy. If anyone's had an overage, it's been you." She continued to walk towards the door and felt her hand fall onto the knob as she heard him again behind her. "I'll make it quick then. What will you be wearing to the wedding?" Hermione stopped, her hand left on the door and her back still facing the room. "The Potter/Weasley ceremony," he clarified and Hermione turned to face him. He was still by the sofa, standing beside his corner of the heavily-cushioned furniture.

Hermione examined him for any signs of madness, convinced he had forgotten who he was talking to. She shook her head and slowly replied, "You know I can't go to their wedding, Malfoy."

He raised an eyebrow and began to make carefully paced strides towards her. "The wedding isn't for another two months. If you'll accept my offer, I believe we can make the progress that's needed for you to attend." Lucius's eyes bounced around the air above their heads as he added quickly, "If that is what you want."

"Of course it is," Hermione confirmed immediately. "They were my best friends." As the words left her lips, she knew they felt off. "They **are** my best friends," she corrected and with his arrogantly satisfied smirk, Lucius nodded at her latter statement.

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><p><strong><em>AN: What do you think? Is Lucius lying about his involvement with the VRA? How about Draco? And oh my gosh, THE WEDDING! Will she be able to go or will seeing all her old friends in one place like that be too much guilt for her to handle?<em>** _**And what on earth has happened to this poor witch's wand? Blah...so much new stuff in this chapter. Let me know what you think in your reviews! I really do appreciate them :)**_

___**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	12. Chapter 12

_**Author's Notes: As always, let me know what you think in your reviews. Lots of little sidetracks taken in this chapter, but I feel like they were important enough for either the story, or the characters, or both. :) Enjoy!**_

_**!WARNING! There is some very brief, mild swearing in this chapter. Nothing major, but if anyone is sensitive to certain four-letter words, you may want to switch a filter on or something. Honestly, it's nothing too horrible though. :)  
><strong>_

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><p>Chapter 12<p>

"No, mum." She paused. "No." Another brief moment of silence. "Well yeah but," Her words were cut off as she listened. "Okay, I will. Okay, mum." She took one more pause before finishing, "Alright, tell dad I love him too. Okay," She nodded out of habit. "Bye."

Hermione hung up the phone; it was an old rotary dial telephone made entirely out of ivory that Malfoy kept on the fourth floor of the manor, just as he had promised earlier. He had led her to the room after they left the library, and as Hermione turned away from the phone, she saw he had been leaning against his walking cane by the door, listening. "So, what's the verdict? Did mummy and daddy send out a search party for you?" He was playing at her but all it seemed to get him was a shove against his right shoulder as she brushed past him and squeezed through the doorway

"What's it matter to you? They're muggles."

Lucius watched as she left the room and followed behind her. "Just trying to make conversation," he replied with a clear tone of false innocence.

Hermione kept walking. "Well they're fine, so you need not be concerned."

"Oh, I doubt I'd ever be concerned with a pair of muggles, but that doesn't mean I'm not curious." Hermione could hear the disturbing smile in his voice as they walked but she ignored him. "You haven't seen them in over a week. I can't help but wonder what you could have possibly told them."

She glanced over her shoulder at the annoyance that continued to follow her down the hallways. "I didn't have to tell them anything. I'm not a child." She spat.

Lucius dropped his eyes as she continued to stomp away, quickening her pace. "No, you're not." He lengthened his strides in order to keep up with her. "However, I find it hard to believe your parents weren't worried at all."

He wasn't going to leave her alone until she answered him; it was becoming more and more obvious with every step they took. She had no idea where she was going but she knew if she was going to shake him off her tail, it wouldn't be by tiring his legs out. "They thought I was with Ron," she mumbled, not bothering to turn her head over her shoulder this time.

"Ahh, I see." Lucius called. "So then there would really be no need for a search party after all." He shrugged just in time for Hermione to spin around, stopping them both in their tracks.

"What's your point, Malfoy?" she snapped, her eyes burning into him as she waited for an explanation.

He shrugged and offered again with the same mock purity, "Does a conversation always have to have a point?"

"With you, yes, it does." Hermione retorted sharply.

Lucius lifted his chin and pressed his brows down over his eyes. "Do you even know where you're going?" He gestured further down the corridor and Hermione hesitated. "I didn't think so." With a glance aimlessly around them, Lucius added, "It took me years to finally understand all the twists and turns this manor has." He could tell she was getting impatient by the way she bit at the corners of her frown, waiting for him to finally let her go on her merry way in peace. "I've been invited to have drinks with an old colleague this evening. I've instructed my house elf to—,"

"Mimbi," Hermione corrected him.

He narrowed his eyes as she interrupted him and continued where he left off, "to keep an eye on you, should you find yourself unable to navigate the halls appropriately. You'll find it's not too difficult if you just stick to one wing at a time." Hermione shrugged and Malfoy added, "I suppose you'll be spending most of your time in the library."

Another nonchalant roll of her shoulders and Hermione answered, "I might," even though she knew she would for certain.

The blonde wizard clenched his jaw at her disengaged attitude and brought up his chin once more. "I'll see you in the morning, Miss Granger." He tilted his head slightly towards her and walked back down the hallway from where they had come, before disappearing around a corner.

* * *

><p>Just as expected, Hermione wandered the hallways until she managed to rediscover the door to the library. Without anyone to bother her or ask her condescending questions, she roamed around the room, skimming over the shelves that lined the walls until she had collected a hefty stack of books to get her through the next few hours before bed. She spread them out over the coffee table's suddenly small surface and plopped down on the edge of the couch, staring down at her choices of what to read first.<p>

* * *

><p>Lucius had gone the entirely different direction, heading off to the enormous dining room where Mimbi was waiting for him. She was holding his dark black outdoors cloak in her elongated elf fingers and it would have almost engulfed her fragile frame if she hadn't been holding it out to him as he entered the room. "Is that the one I asked for, with the matching inner lining?" The little house elf smiled wide with a proud nod as she lowered the garment and flipped up one of the sides to expose the lining Malfoy had requested earlier in the day. She beamed up at him, knowing she had successfully pleased her master and as he glanced down at her, he caught a glint of light as it reflected off her enormous pupils, surrounded by the bright green rings of her eyes. They were focused on his face so intently, waiting for his reply, for a simply nod or one of his notorious smirks, and Lucius couldn't help but hear Hermione's voice repeating the little elf's name in his head. His face must have dropped, softened in some way because as he brought his mind back to the elf in front of him, he noticed she was smiling wider, perhaps even thinking of speaking to him for some unknown reason. He tightened his jaw and made an effort to harden his glare before he spotted it. The cloak in the tiny house elf's hands had lowered just another centimeter too many; the very tip of its bottom had grazed over the floor not only once, but twice before she had enough sense to lift the damned thing back up to the proper height. But the damage had already been done. A small streak of floor dust could be seen on the bottom seam of the pitch black cloak and it stuck out like a sore thumb. "What have I told you about the importance of a wizard's property?" Mimbi began to apologize, stuttering in her haste, but Malfoy wouldn't let her get out as many words. "You stupid, insignificant little…" Malfoy began, grabbing the cloak out of her hands and starting to brush away the offending mark as if it were on fire. The house elf reached out for the cloak, stammering over her words as she tried to offer to clean it, but Malfoy cut her off, throwing the heavy cloak at her thin body. "Of course you will! Were you expecting <em>me<em> to clean up _your_ mess, elf?" His face twisted into a snarled frown as he knocked his house elf out of his way, causing her to trip over the length of fabric she was trying to fold over into a more manageable shape, and crumble face first onto the freshly polished floor. "I need it in ten minutes, and it better be clean this time," he warned as he stomped out of the room.

* * *

><p>Her first cluster of books had flown by faster than she expected and as she placed them back in their appropriate spots on the shelves, Hermione began pulling out new ones and tossing them over to the sofa with the others that she intended to read that evening. When nearly half of the sofa cushions were covered in fresh reading material, she sat back down and pulled her feet up underneath her, curling up comfortably in the corner of the sofa with her next thrilling tale. Of course her piles included more than just story books and works of fiction, but she had a habit of starting off with a good adventure book.<p>

With three books down and still many more to go, Hermione heard a gentle knock on the library door. It was so soft that at first, she wasn't sure if she had even heard it, but when it came again, slightly louder, she called out quickly, "Come in." The tiny house elf pushed the door open and Hermione smiled as she realized it wasn't Malfoy. "Mimbi!" She exclaimed. "I was wondering when you would come visit me." Her eyes rolled around the room dramatically as she added, "It gets awfully lonely in such a massive house, doesn't it?"

Mimbi smiled back softly and neither agreed nor disagreed, but instead asked, "Dinner, ma'am?"

Hermione glanced down at the book in her lap and painfully tried to force out a weak, apologetic grin. "I'm right at the most exciting part. Would it be possible to eat a little later?"

With a short nod, Mimbi stepped forward and dusted off one of the nearby bookshelves where a bit of dust had begun to settle. "Tea?" She offered instead.

As the house elf took a step closer, Hermione caught sight of her right cheek just below her eye. It hadn't swelled yet but by the looks of it, it wouldn't be long before she would have a pretty obvious shiner. Her cheekbone had a minor scrape, matched with a blush of redness from where she had hit the dining room floor hours ago. "Mimbi! What happened to your face?" Hermione bolted up from the sofa and reached out for the elf's cheek, but Mimbi turned it away before she could touch the newly bruised skin. "Does it hurt?" Hermione asked with a wince. It looked worse from a distance but even as Hermione stared down at the tiny elf's bony face, it wasn't particularly nice to look at. It would darken and bruise completely by the end of the night, she was sure of that.

"No matter, ma'am." Mimbi replied, pulling herself away from both the bookshelves and Hermione in one carefully placed step back towards the door. "Tea." She nodded happily and smiled, pushing her cheeks up with a sore effort.

"Mimbi, wait…" Hermione called but before she could get anything else out of her, the house elf had tugged the heavy door back open and left the library.

* * *

><p>"We were beginning to think you wouldn't come, Lucius."<p>

His eyes lowered until they fell on the group of men sitting at a darkened table towards the back of the room. "I said I would, didn't I?"

Another one of the men replied this time. "Aye, you did, but you've been saying a lot of things lately, old friend. Perhaps a bit too much."

"I haven't said a bloody thing, Amycus. I'd have thought you knew me better than that." Lucius hissed through his clenched teeth, trying to keep his voice down while also getting his point across as clearly as possible.

The man sitting at the table—Amycus, let out a throaty chuckle and kicked the empty chair across from him out towards Lucius. "Alright, alright," he warned, lifting up both hands in surrender before taking a swig from his mug. He muttered into his drink, "Fuck's sake… can't even joke with you anymore, now that you're the ministry's pet."

Lucius took a pace forward and kicked the chair back with such force that it collided with the table and knocked the man's elbow. His drink splashed up out of his tall mug and landed in a puddle on the dirty wooden table. "Watch your mouth, Carrow or I'll do you a favor and sew it shut myself." Lucius spat at the death eater, ignoring the round of drunken muggles at neighboring tables who had turned their heads to the commotion the two wizards had caused. No one knew him there, any of them. As he glanced around at the other wizards sitting down at the grimy pub table, he recognized them all as previous members of Voldemort's cause. Amycus Carrow, Walden Macnair, Crabbe, and Thorfinn Rowle all burst up from their seats as their drinks threatened to spill into their laps.

"What the hell, Lucius!"

"Fuckin' prick!"

"Sit down, Carrow!"

The last to be heard was Crabbe as he reached across the small table to press his arm against his fellow bar mate's chest. Amycus was ready to lunge at Malfoy, but the other two quickly followed suit, holding the wizard back and keeping a particularly close eye on the wand that he had tucked away in his trouser pocket. "I said sit down! You're barking mad, you fool!" With a heavy hand, he shoved the fuming man back down into his seat and yelled over to the muggle behind the bar, "Get him another drink!"

"One more for me as well."

"Another one over here while you're at it!"

"Lucius, my dear friend, sit down. Don't listen to this idiot. Your loyalties are of no question here." Crabbe spoke again, this time carefully pushing out the chair towards Malfoy, despite the table being soaked in whiskey and other toxic beverages of the sort. Lucius eyed Carrow a moment longer, making certain that his old acquaintance had truly settled down enough to no longer be a threat, before dragging the seat out further and sitting down at the table with his old colleagues of Voldemort's work.

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><p>Mimbi had stopped in only to drop off the familiar tray of tea. When Hermione tried to ask her again what happened to the poor elf's face, she rushed out of the library without a word. Hermione frowned and shook her head, cursing under her breath, "Malfoy…" She spent the rest of her time buried behind piles of books, forgetting all about dinner and instead filling up on the delicious tea Mimbi had brought her while she flipped through the pages. The thought of pacing herself didn't even enter her mind as she flew through book after book, unable to put any of them down until they had been read from cover to cover.<p>

Her eyes began to feel heavy but she forced them to stay open for just a little bit longer. She just needed to finish the book she was on, and then she would drag herself to one of the many empty bedrooms and collapse in one of the beds for the night. That one book turned into two, and then three, until finally she was on the fourth and final book in her current pile. Her lids kept dropping, blinding her as the book in her hands began to lower down onto her lap, only to be jerked back upwards as she woke herself up before she could actually fall asleep. With every new page, her lids fluttered downwards and the cycle began all over again, until finally, they stayed closed and the book slipped from her hands, lying open on the sofa cushion beside her.

* * *

><p>The door opened but it wasn't until she heard it click shut that she exploded up from her sound sleep. It had been an unintentional nap to shake away the tiredness that was clouding her eyes as she tried to read, but it had lasted longer than she planned. The sound of the door nearly sent her into a panic as the noise startled her awake. Her eyes focused in on the door and she felt her tensed body relax as she realized it was only Malfoy. "I thought you were going to be out all night?" She questioned. That was the only reason she had hunkered down so comfortably in his library; knowing that he wouldn't be there.<p>

Lucius nodded. "I was." He glanced around at the number of books scattered all over the sofa and coffee table. There were even a few littered on the floor around the sitting area. He bent down and picked one up before sliding it back on the bookshelf where it belonged.

Hermione straightened the books on the table into a neat pile and began to collect the ones on the sofa in an effort to clean up the hurricane she had created over the course of the evening. She hadn't expected him to return so soon, otherwise she would have returned the books hours ago instead of blowing through them and leaving them where ever she had happened to finish them. As if bothered by his unannounced return, Hermione stated, "I didn't think you'd be back so early. What happened? The night didn't go according to plan?"

As he passed behind the back of the sofa on his way to a bookcase across the room, the smell of what appeared to be either brandy or scotch wafted over to her. She made a face as the strong scent struck her by surprise and Lucius shook his head. "Early? It's almost quarter to three." When Hermione didn't reply, not sure if she believed him, he mistook her silence for confusion and added slowly, "…in the morning."

"It can't be that late. I just read for a few hours." She explained, trying to factor out in her head exactly how many books she had read and how long that quantity would typically take her. As she skimmed over the room and tried to remember which books she had read, the math all pointed to what Lucius was telling her. She had not only read for the past couple hours, but spent the entire night from early evening to early morning devouring his library piece by piece.

Lucius ran a hand through his hair roughly, the bags under his eyes becoming more noticeable as he spoke. "Well I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted and need to sleep." He shrugged. "Have this place back in order before you retire for the night." Hermione nodded, stacking another stray book on top of her growing pile. With one last glance around the room, then back at Hermione, Lucius left the library.

* * *

><p>The morning extended into the early afternoon and Hermione knew that if Mimbi hadn't of woken her up, the early afternoon probably would have turned into the early evening before long. After restoring the library to its typical pristine condition, Hermione crashed in a nearby bedroom, having no sense of attachment to any of her previous rooms in the manor. She had no possessions with her except the clothes on her back and she hated to admit it, but they were beginning to look a bit crumpled and tired after days of constant wear. Luckily, Mimbi had not only entered her room to wake her up, but the little elf also held a small flat box in her hands as she stood beside Hermione's bed. It nearly startled her to death, waking up with a less than appealing tiny creature staring at her as she slept, but as Mimbi began to apologize, Hermione remembered the way Dobby used to self-discipline and shushed her before she could anything other than "Sorr—,"<p>

"I'm fine, Mimbi. No worries." Hermione sat up in the bed, dragging her legs so they hung down over the edge of the mattress. She tried to smile but it came off weak and insincere as she stared at the house elf's discolored cheek. It had started to bruise and Hermione knew without even asking that it must still be tender to the touch. "How's your face? You never did tell me what happened…" She let her words trail off, hoping her frail guest would take it upon herself to share the tale.

No such luck. Mimbi looked down at the box she was holding and thrust it forward with an excited spark in her eyes. "You. For you."

"For me?" Hermione asked, taking the box and setting it down in her lap. It wasn't heavy and didn't have any sort of wrapping or decorations. It couldn't be a present and even if it was, she couldn't think of who it would be from. _'Ron maybe? Harry?'_ were the first to come to her mind. She realized the elf's eyes were still trained wildly on the box and smiled, knowing the suspense was killing her. "What do you think? Should I open it?" Hermione asked enthusiastically, as if she were speaking with a small child. Mimbi nodded quickly and Hermione slipped her index finger under one of the box's flaps. It gave away easily, breaking free from the matching edge that it had been fastened to and Hermione slowly did the same to the opposite side. She took hold of the lid and with one final glance at the thrill house elf, she lifted the top of the box open. "Oh…" the witch breathed softly. "Oh, this is…" Mimbi pushed herself onto her toes, trying to see clearly into the shallow box, and Hermione lifted the object out of it carefully, letting the box drop to the floor as she stood from the bed. A long, deep blue robe fell down to just above her ankles as she held it out for the elf to see. It was triple stitched with a cool green thread to compliment the almost black color of the fabric. If she held it to the sunlight pouring in through the enchanted window across the room, she could see its true blue nature, but in any other light, it appeared to be an ordinary black set of robes. It was so different from her current muggle attire that she almost felt out of place holding it. She hadn't even thought of trying on any of her old robes since she left the wizarding world and returned home to her parents years ago. It felt odd to hold one that seemed to be exactly her size and with such elaborate detail around the hems, but she couldn't deny that her very first thought was that she wanted to try it on.

She kicked the box underneath the bed and spun around, throwing the midnight blue robes over her shoulders and fastening the tie around her neck. "It fits perfectly, Mimbi." Hermione noted as she stood with her back to the elf, pulling the outfit into place quickly. "It fits even better than my old school robes, and I'd broken those in years ago!" When she was happy with the way everything appeared, she spun back around on her heels to show her little elf friend. "Well, how does it look?" She asked as she turned, her eyes cast down to the level of the house elf, but Mimbi had vanished.

"Ah, good. It fits." Her eyes darted over to the door to find the source of the voice. It was much deeper than Mimbi's and was laced with a subtle ring of arrogance. _Malfoy._ He was standing in the doorway, one hand resting heavily on his walking cane and the other hanging loosely on the old silver doorknob. As he took the first steps into the room, Hermione saw Mimbi standing behind him, now out in the hallway, before the house elf waved briefly and disappeared with the snap of her fingers. Hermione's eyes drifted back to Malfoy as he stopped only feet away from her. "You don't look pleased." He raised an eyebrow and offered, "I can have it tailored if necessary, though I do believe the measurements are spot on."

"It feels fine." Hermione said before setting her thoughts on the new robes aside. "I meant to ask you last night," she jumped right in to the next topic, one she had promised herself she would discuss once he got back. "What happened to Mimbi's face. She won't tell me a word and seeing as we're the only one here with her, that only leaves you." She wished she hadn't been wearing the robes then. Her serious, let's-skip-the-bull demeanor would have been easier to pull off if she wasn't wearing something he had obviously bought specifically for her. Nevertheless, she planted her feet into a solid stance and crossed her arms firmly over her chest, waiting for his reply.

"She tripped." He shrugged. "It's a big house with lots of rugs. Perhaps she stumbled on one of them while tending to her daily chores." Lucius turned around and examined a small hole in one of the walls where something had been hung, though he couldn't remember what exactly it had been. "How am I supposed to know? I don't keep track of her every second of the day."

Hermione watched him as he denied any involvement in the house elf's injury and she knew he was lying. She couldn't explain how, but the way he spoke and almost tried too hard to not care, made her think he wasn't being truthful. "Either you can tell me the truth here, Malfoy or we can wait until we play 21 questions in your library. It makes no difference to me, but I don't appreciate being lied to."

Malfoy's eyes lowered as he trailed them over the floor across the space between them before snapping them back up at hers. "I said she tripped." He repeated, slightly deeper and longer than the first time. "I _may_ have been in the room but it's not my fault if the clumsy thing can't manage her own feet properly." He held onto her eyes, keeping them locked on his own for an extra few seconds, before finally breaking away and glancing back down at her new robes. "It does fit nicely. I'll have the others brought to your room, assuming you eventually stop moving to a new one each night."

"The others?" Hermione asked. "What others?"

"Robes, clothes, various shirts, slacks, and whatever else is needed." He waved his hand in the air as he listed off the purchases he had already arranged earlier in the day. "I was assured that they would all arrive by this evening, and I see this one already has." Lucius nodded towards the soft fabric hanging around her frame.

She looked off. She wasn't confused and she wasn't particularly angry, but she wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel or what she was supposed to say. She knew thanks were in order but all Hermione could press out was a soft, "You didn't have to. I mean, I didn't ask you to."

He was shaking his head before she even finished. "Oh no, I **did** have to. It's bad enough that our current situation has me photographed on a regular basis with you, but to have you wearing those foul muggle shreds they call clothing…No, you can rest assured that I got them more so for my own sake than for yours."

It was insulting and pompous all at once, but it saved Hermione from feeling the urge to thank him, so she didn't fight against his reasoning, no matter how rude it was. "Fine," she rolled her eyes, but Mimbi was still on her mind. "But let me make this simple, Malfoy. If I see another mark on that sweet, angel of a house elf you so rudely called a 'thing', I have every intent on leaving you alone to handle the Daily Prophet and your probation, wand or not."

His back teeth ground down together as he listened to her threat, but he didn't buy it. "Now who's the one lying?" Lucius smirked. "You need your wand back more than I need my house elf."

"Try me," she pushed through tight lips. She wasn't happy with his response and he knew it.

Still, he smiled and took a couple paces forward until he was standing face to face with the bold young witch. "Such big words coming from such a little muggle." Hermione's eyes narrowed as he spoke but he caught her. "That is what you are after all. A witch without her wand, tisk tisk," he made a pitiful clicking with his tongue before the smirk returned once more. "may as well be nothing more than a muggle." She was about ready to pounce on him, or at least that's what she thought of doing. Whether she really would have done so, they would never know. Lucius took a step backwards before turning around completely and heading towards the door. "I'll watch my temper around the elf—,"

"Mimbi," Hermione interrupted sharply.

Lucius glanced over at her, tensing his jaw at her correction. "Yes, around her." His hand fell onto the doorknob as he redirected the flow of their conversation. "You know, that shows that you're improving. If you were as frail and terrified as you were when you first brought here, I doubt you would have said anything at all."

"I would have said something no matter what state I was in, Malfoy." She still had the defiance tone within her words and he knew she still wasn't quite over how he chose to treat his house elf.

He shrugged; it didn't matter what she thought, but he would humor her for the time being. "You might be right, or maybe you're just getting too comfortable here." She couldn't place what he meant. Was he suggesting she wasn't actually getting better but simply getting used to him? Her frown deepened as she wondered if he was right. He cleared his throat and puffed out his chest, straightening his stance as he waited for her by the door. "Either way, we have plans for this evening."

"We do?" Hermione asked.

Lucius nodded shortly. "We do. There's a quidditch match that I've been given tickets to."

Hermione snorted. "Quidditch? I always thought it was Draco who had dragged you to the games. I never pictured you as a fan."

An eyebrow rose at her quick assumption of him, and Lucius noted, "Everyone enjoys a good quidditch match. I even played during my years at Hogwarts."

Hermione laughed again before apologizing. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh. I just can't really picture you on a broomstick."

Malfoy spread out his arms and looked down at his strictly-business wizard garments. He was wearing what almost looked to be a muggle suit, except the elongated jacket and slightly flared cuffs made it clear that they were wizard-made. "Well obviously I wasn't wearing these, but I don't find it so unusual that I played on the Slytherin team during my youth." Hermione rolled her shoulder but still couldn't imagine a younger version of the straight-faced blonde wizard riding around on a broom like any other student. Lucius lifted his chin and motioned towards the door. "The game starts in an hour. It's important that we're seen there."

"Why?" Hermione asked but she already knew what the answer would be. The Daily Prophet covered every quidditch match, in every district and every level. It even kept tabs on the Hogwarts games. She remembered sitting at the breakfast table every morning and watching Ron and Harry peer all over the pages, trying to see which teams had won and which ones had lost. It was only after they were done with the sports pages that they finally skimmed over the actual news stories. What could be a better place for Lucius to be seen with his newest muggle-born acquaintance than a lively quidditch match?

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><p><em><strong>AN: Hopefully I didn't lose too many readers with this chapter! I know it was a tad bit boring, but like I said earlier, it needed to happen. With any luck, it'll all fall back together in later chapters :) Let me know what you think. Too boring? Not boring at all? Or somewhere in between? I can't wait to write the quidditch match :D The games were always my favorite part of the booksmovies.**_

___**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	13. Chapter 13

**_Author's Notes: Hopefully I didn't lose too many of you with how long this chapter took to get up. I really will try to focus and get the next one posted sooner. In the mean time, I hope you enjoy chapter 13. As I said before, Quidditch has always been my favorite part in the books/movies, so hopefully I did it some form of justice here. -fingers crossed!- Leave me a review and let me know how you think it turned out, as well as the chapter as a whole. :) I love reading your feedback! Enjoy!_**

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><p>Chapter 13<p>

After an extremely quick shower and an unavoidable struggle with her unruly hair, Hermione pulled her new robes back on and met Lucius in the library. It was beginning to become their unofficial meeting place, though not by any preference. The library was the only place Hermione could confidently find her way to without getting lost on the journey. If the dining room had been any closer, it would have ranked just as easily, but it was too far away. After rapping on the large library door, Hermione heard Lucius accept her in. "I told you before. You can use this room any time you'd like." He was sitting at his oversized desk, a pile of messy parchment spread out over the surface as he looked up to watch Hermione enter. "You don't need to knock."

"Unless I know you'll be out, I'd rather knock first." Hermione walked over to the sofa and sat down on her usual corner cushion. "It wouldn't feel right otherwise. You could be busy."

Lucius had dropped his head back down to his work as she answered but his hand stopped moving over the pages where he had been reading previously. "Busy with what exactly?" Hermione sat with her back against the sofa's armrest, one of her arms was resting on the back of the furniture so she could face him as they spoke. Malfoy's palm started moving again, gliding over the parchment as he searched it for something in particular. "This is a library, Miss Granger. Not an office. If I'm busy, I doubt you'll find me in here."

"Well, then what are you doing there?" She sat up straighter, trying to see the papers from where she was seated but it was too far away. "Looks like you're busy to me."

He lifted the piece of parchment he had been reading from and showed it to Hermione. It was a map, an old, torn drawing of what appeared to be a large cluster of trees. It wasn't big enough to truly call a forest, but it was the only word she could think to properly describe the landscape. "I've just got word that the portkey we were planning on using tonight has been moved." He jabbed a finger at the center of the trees and bushes and explained, "We'll need to apparate just outside these trees here, and follow a path until we hit the portkey."

"Do you know why it was moved?" Hermione asked curiously.

"There was an issue." Lucius shrugged and stood from the desk. He started rolling up the pieces of parchment and tucking the majority of them into the top drawer. He kept the one that showed the map and slipped it into one of his robe pockets. "Apparently some delinquent thought it would be amusing to place a countercharm on the portkey. Everyone who tried to use the portkey within the last hour or so were transported to Diagon Alley instead of to the quidditch game." As Lucius explained, the first thought that popped into Hermione's head was of the Weasley twins. They were known for their pranks and gags, even whilst out of Hogwarts. They had opened their own jokes shop and up until the end of the war, it had thrived under their mischievous hands. However, once the war finally ended and the casualties were counted, buried, and mourned, the shop's profits took a noticeable slump. The loss of one of its owners and creators was a hard hit on a newly formed business and if it weren't for Harry and Ron's help, Hermione knew for sure it would have closed shortly after Fred had passed. She looked back at the map in Malfoy's hands and knew it had to be a new generation of pranksters and not the Weasley twins she would have assumed a few years prior. "What's the matter?" His voice made her realize she had been staring at the map for longer than expected, lost in her memories of her old friends, the living and the deceased.

Her eyes trailed up to his face as Lucius slowly lowered the parchment and rolled it tightly in his hands. She shook her head, shaking away the image of the remaining Weasleys crying over the body of their fallen member. "Nothing, I was just thinking about someone."

Lucius straightened his stance as he began to pull the scattered papers over his desk into somewhat of a neat pile. With a glance and a curious raise of his left brow, he asked, "And is this someone a friend or foe?"

"He's a friend." Hermione answered before correcting herself, "I mean, he was." Her voice dropped and she shook her head again, less noticeably this time. "He was killed during the war."

The library fell silent as Lucius finished sorting through his papers and Hermione felt the need to say no more. The blonde wizard stuffed a few of the papers, the rolled map included, into his inner cloak pocket and cleared his throat. "I would offer my condolences though I doubt you would believe there was any truth to them."

Hermione lifted her chin to see him better over the back of the sofa. "You're right. I wouldn't." She confirmed his assumption flatly without a second thought.

Malfoy shrugged and walked from the desk to the door, pulling it open as he waited for Hermione to follow. "Fair enough. We need to get going if we don't want to be late."

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><p><em>"Ladies and gentlemen, witches and wizards, boys and girls of all ages! It is with great honor and privilege that I welcome you to quite possibly what may be the most riveting, most thrilling, and most terrifying Quidditch game you will ever bear witness to! I've been told by my superiors that I am by law required to advise…kids, don't try this at home! Now, without further ado, may I present to you…the daring, the diabolical, the delightfully talented… the Wigtown Wanderers!"<em>

Hermione's eyes darted all over the wide open air within the large arena as she looked around for the players. As the announcer's voice pounded through the oversized speakers, magically enchanted to reach each and every ear in the stadium perfectly, the spectators in the stands below began stomping their feet in anticipation. They clapped and cheered, roared out the names of their favorite players, though they were all drowned out by the sound of their different yells of excitement. Lucius was sitting next to her, his elbows resting on the edge of the railing in front of them as he casually clapped his hands together. They were seated in a private booth high above the main stadium area, and as the first team—the Wigtown Wanderers, burst into the arena, zooming and diving all above the Quidditch pitch, Hermione could see them all perfectly from her privileged seat.

_"Now, now! Settle down folks! I still have the absolute pleasure of announcing… the charismatic, the courageous, the brightest blurs you'll ever see flying across a Quidditch pitch... the Chudley Cannons!"_

Just as with the first team, as they were announced, the second team—the Chudley Cannons, exploded from their private courters below the stands and zipped up into the air for all to see. Their bright orange uniforms made them stand out even easier against the clear blue sky. It was early evening but as there were no clouds in the sky, it almost made the day seem longer as the sun began to sink away. The crowd went wild with their noise makers and cheers. Those without party poppers and clackers used their wands to shoot sparks and bursts of colorful light into the outskirts of the Quidditch pitch. Hermione joined them, letting out an enthusiastic hoot as one of the players flew past their booth, waving at all the spectators. It had been years since she felt so much of a thrill and as the adrenaline began to build within her, she was glad to admit that it wasn't from one of her paranoid fits or a painful flashback. Lucius continued his reserved clapping, still seated while Hermione chose to stand, pressed up against the railing. The players from both teams circled the field, admiring their fans as the cheers seemed to get louder. Just as the announcer began to speak again, trying to rally up the crowd even more and prepare them for the excitement of the game, Hermione froze. She took a step backwards until she felt the backs of her legs hit the edge of her seat, and allowed herself to fall back into it. She was stunned as she stared off at the far right, her eyes trained on a player hovering around another private booth. He was wearing an orange uniform with the image of a cannonball pressed over his chest along with a large letter 'C'. It was hard to read from so far away, but as he stopped moving around so much and hung around that one booth, Hermione read the name on his back. **Weasley.** He gave one last wave at the occupants of the booth before soaring off to join the rest of his team as they assembled into position. Still not fully believing what she had seen, she kept her eyes on him as the referee stepped onto the field to begin the game. "That's Ron!" she exclaimed loudly so Lucius could hear her over the noise of the stadium.

He didn't seem as surprised as she was. Malfoy leaned forward and squinted to get a better look at the player she was pointing to and nodded. "Yes, I had assumed it was common knowledge who the players of each team are." Leaning back in his seat, Lucius watched as the referee knelt down and released the small golden snitch from its confines. It flitted all around, lingering over a few players, before disappearing into the distance somewhere. The seekers from both teams were already narrowing in on the tiny, shinning object, willing themselves not to blink just in case it darted off into a different direction without any warning.

Hermione glared at Lucius once before turning back to the players, more specifically, Ron. "What part of 'I've avoided everything about the wizarding world for the past two years' did you not understand?" She snapped at him before letting the attitude slip away slightly. "He's always had an interest in Quidditch but I didn't know he had joined the Chudley Cannons." It was Ron's favorite team but somehow Hermione never pictured him taking his Quidditch career any further than Hogwarts. When he first started playing for the Gryffindor team, he was horrible. He was clumsy and unsure of himself but once the try-outs came around, he managed to hold his own. That is, with Hermione's help. She remembered how she cheated slightly and helped Ron win the position over Cormac. At the time, it wasn't the right thing to do and went against all of her morals, but as she looked back on it and saw how much he must have improved, enough to join a professional team, she was happy she had _helped_ him all those years ago. "Do you think he saw me?" Hermione asked, slumping back into her seat in an attempt to hide herself. "That booth over there— that must be where his family is sitting." She turned to Malfoy. "What are you trying to do, Malfoy? You keep bringing me to places where you know they'll be!"

"You need to calm down," Lucius warned. "I don't happen to keep a schedule of where the Weasley litter will be every second of the day. I have more important things to do with my time." He knew Hermione didn't believe it and after all, why would she? All she was concerned about was whether or not she would have another confrontation with Ron or his family, or maybe even Harry tonight, and Lucius could tell it was bothering her. "If it'll stop you from going into hysterics, I can charm our booth so that he can't see you."

"And what about your precious paparazzi?" Hermione knew there obviously weren't any reporters in their booth, snapping pictures of them, but there were bound to be at least a few people from the Daily Prophet covering the Quidditch match. Getting a story on the two of them together would be somewhat of a bonus for them.

Lucius shrugged. "They've already seen us arrive. That'll be enough for this evening." He pulled out his wand and stood. "You really should learn to get over this eventually. I can keep putting up charm after charm for you, but I doubt it's doing you any good." Hermione let her eyes drop down. She knew he was right but for the time being, the charms did help, even if they weren't doing any good in the long run. Just as he said, Lucius began to place the protective charms, shielding them from the rest of the spectators and the players. It took only a few minutes since the booth was much smaller than a full sized room and just as he finished wrapping up the last layer of the charm, there was a knock on the door. "Come in," Lucius called.

It was a heavyset witch with long purple robes and a matching feathered hat. Her face was rosy as she smiled and pushed a snack trolley into their doorway. "Snacks or beverages while you watch the match, dearies?" she asked and her glowing face made Hermione smile back. Lucius tucked his wand away and walked over to the witch and her cart of goodies.

After examining the snacks and dismissing them without a second glance, he asked, "Don't suppose you have any fire whiskey hidden away somewhere, do you?" The witch's cheeks lifted as her smile widened with a nod. She lifted a flap towards the bottom of the cart and began poking through. There was the sound of clinking bottles and Hermione guessed that's where she kept all the intoxicating beverages.

Hermione rolled her eyes at Malfoy. "Do you have to drink _every_ night?"

The witch lifted her head from the cart and glanced from Hermione to Lucius. She waited until Lucius nodded for her to continue before popping the top off the bottle of fire whiskey and producing a glass from the same section of the cart. Lucius turned to Hermione with a smirk. "I don't _need_ to. I simply prefer to."

"Well you can do it alone tonight." Hermione announced loudly, earning her another rolled glance. "Pumpkin juice, please." The witch by the door nodded at her order and pulled out a bottle of juice for Hermione. "Thank you!" She returned to her seat as Lucius took his fire whiskey and tipped the snack trolley witch generously.

* * *

><p>The game started off with a bang. One of the Cannon beaters collided with a Wigtown keeper, knocking the keeper out cold within the first ten minutes. Everyone winced and half the crowd seemed to boo while the other half cheered as the player was pulled off the field and into the medical unit. Hermione tried to keep her mind on the game more so than on Ron, but somehow her eyes kept finding him. He flew with much more accuracy than she remembered him having at Hogwarts. There was no doubt that he must have been practicing nonstop in the past two years, and most likely trained with some of the best once he made it onto the team. One thought that she couldn't shake was how healthy he looked. The way she had left him the night that Malfoy found her, he was a mess. She wasn't even sure if he would survive, and yet there he was, flying all over the pitch and even doing a pretty good job at defending the rings. Hermione looked down at the medical area that the injured player disappeared into and knew now that Ron was on a professional team like the Chudley Cannons, he would have some of the best healers working for him and the team. She wondered how much time and effort it had taken them to fix him up enough so that he could play tonight.<p>

Her thoughts were interrupted as a fluttering little ball of gold appeared right in front of her, just past the railing. It took a moment to register what she was seeing. To her surprise, Lucius jumped up beside her and stood by the railing, clapping his hands loudly and calling towards the Wigtown seeker that was hovering only a few booths away. "The snitch!" He whistled and it pierced through the crowd's roars, catching the seeker's attention. Lucius leaned over the railing, past his protective charm so the seeker could see him, and pointed at the golden orb as it lingered in front of them long enough for the seeker to spot it. He gave Lucius a beaming smile and hurled himself after it, but the snitch was too fast. It was racing all around the stadium with the player hot on its trail. The crowd got even louder, yelling and screaming every time the little ball zipped past them. It didn't take long before the Chudley Cannon's seeker was fighting for it as well. They were neck and neck, bumping shoulders and giving more than gentle nudges at one another as they chased after the snitch. Their chests pressed hard against their broomsticks as they dug deeper, both seekers determined to be the one to end it all and win the game for their team. The closer they got to the little ball of victory, the louder everything seemed to become. Hermione could hear the booths on either side of theirs exploding with cheers and cries of encouragement as everyone in the stadium begged for their team's seeker to be the one to grab it.

"_Ladies and gentlemen, this could be it! The moment to end it all! It's anyone's game at this point and it could all be over in a matter of seconds! Hold onto your seats and get ready because this…is…IT!" _The announcer's voice hammered past all the noise of the arena. Hermione lunged at the railing, joining in on the excitement and pure thrill of the game. She yelled and hollered, choosing of course to cheer on the Chudley Cannons seeker, while Lucius stood beside her, supporting the Wigtown Wanderers. They both were clapping and banging against the railing, just like everyone else watching the game. _"They're closing in! It's the moment of truth, folks! Keep your eyes peeled because you don't want to miss this!"_

"Get it! Get it!" Hermione exclaimed excitedly, pounding away at the railing with the sides of her fists.

Lucius stuck two fingertips between his lips and let out an ear piercing whistle before calling out, "It's right in front of you! Grab it!"

"_Who's it going to be? Wigtown Wanderers… or… Chudley Cannons? Let's hear it folks! Let them know you're rooting for them!" _As the announcer said each team's name, the arena burst into an even louder fit, both equally as loud as the other. The seekers were only an arm's length or two behind the snitch and as it seemed to fly faster and faster, the players kept with it, hurling themselves forward as they tried to keep steady on their brooms. The fans began to chant as they pounded their fists and stomped their feet. _"Sooo close! This is just so close! Wait! Look!" _The announcer's voice grew wilder as the seekers both extended their arms out and reached for the tiny golden ball. They were side by side, their shoulders pressed flat up against each other as they stretched, trying to reach it. Their fingertips were only inches away. _"Is it? Do we have…Almost…YES!" _The voice over the stadium speakers was shouting but it was almost completely engulfed by the roars of the crowd, followed by a loud horn that declared the end of the game. _"Ladies and gentlemen! We have a winner! The Chudley Cannons have won the game by means of the golden snitch! 150 points to the Chudley Cannons and that's enough to give them the game!"_

Sparks were shot up into the sky much like muggle fireworks as the fans celebrated. Hermione grinned happily, still caught up in the excitement of the game, and spun around with her hands in the air. "Yes! I knew it! Go Cannons!"

Lucius smirked as he watched her celebrate, plopping back into his seat and gulping down the last of his fire whiskey with a groan. It burned going down and as he swallowed it all, he lowered the glass onto the railing and began to applaud slowly. Hermione gradually came to a stop as she realized Lucius was staring at her as he clapped his hands together leisurely. "Congratulations, Miss Granger. Although you have to admit, it was a very close game. Have you always been a Cannons fan?"

"No," Hermione admitted, the undeniable grin of victory still lingering over her lips. "Well, kind of I guess. I was never a massive Quidditch fan, but after spending so much time with Ron and Harry, it sort of rubbed off on me." She explained. "The Cannons have always been Ron's favorite team so…," the witch shrugged and finished her thought with another gentle smile, as if that was all the reasoning she needed to give.

"It seems you made the right choice in who to support then." Malfoy rose his empty glass and tilted it towards her. "I would offer to drink to your win, though I do believe you said nothing stronger than pumpkin juice tonight…" He smirked, as if to silently offer her a drink should she have changed her mind, but she simply shook her head and returned his devious expression with one of her own. "In that case, we should be heading back. If we wait any longer, we'll be forced to exit with the stadium seating crowd below us and that could take longer than my patience will allow." Malfoy extended his arm as he passed by Hermione. She took it loosely by the inner elbow and they left their balcony booth.

The hallway was busy, though not as packed as she was sure the stadium was beneath them. The witches and wizards who had occupied the other balcony seating were pouring out of their booths and heading for the exits where they could apparate or find their appropriate port keys. A pair of children no older than six or seven years old raced past them, brushing Malfoy's backside and pushing him into Hermione's frame. They heard a woman's scolding voice carry across the hallway from where the children were running towards and knew it had to be their mother. "Watch where you're going, Tommy! Apologize when you bump into people!"

The young boy slowed his paces and yelled over his shoulder, "Sorry Mister!" before breaking into a sprint again and calling after the girl he was running with. No doubt he would nudge a few other people on his way to his family, but boys will be boys.

"Kids! No respect these days, am I right?" In their distraction, Hermione didn't notice the familiar man walking up to them until he spoke. "Lucius, it's been ages it seems. How have you been?" The two men clasped their hands on each other's forearms and shook vigorously as if old friend meeting after a long parting.

Malfoy patted the man on the shoulder, ending their handshake and flashed a stiff smile at the bald wizard. "Jugson, what a pleasant surprise. What did you think of the match?" He asked nonchalantly.

The slightly shorter wizard twisted his face into a disgusted look and groaned. "Ah, if they would have kept the damned seeker they had last season, Wanderers would have taken the win, no doubt about that!" Jugson ran his hand over his head as if to smooth the hair that wasn't there and glanced at Hermione before looking back at Malfoy. "I see the rumors are true then. You've been keeping new company by your side now-a-days." He didn't even try to disguise the disapproving tone in his voice, though he did at least keep his eyes away from Hermione's. She wasn't sure whether it was because she wasn't worthy enough in his mind to look at, or he was too weak of a man to make eye contact with someone from the Order after Voldemort's defeat. It didn't matter; she didn't want him even near her so his lack of interest came as a welcomed surprise.

"It seems I have." Lucius replied coolly with his usual sense of overconfidence. He lifted his chin in a subtle dare and waited to see if his old death eater friend would push the issue any further.

Choosing to now lower his eyes away from Malfoy as well, Jugson shifted them over to Hermione and scanned her over. "You're looking…" he bit at the inside of his cheek briefly before settling on the only suitable word he could think of without gagging on his forced kindness. "_well. _Done some growing up, have you?" He grinned and Hermione knew he was referring to the only other time they had any sort of encounter. She had seen him once before, in the department of mysteries. He was one of the death eaters fighting against Harry and the rest of Dumblore's Army, and had no moral issues with shooting spells at children barely into their teens.

Hermione bit down on her back teeth as the old death eater beamed in front of her. She involuntarily balled her hand into a fist, tightening her grip on Lucius's arm in the process, and tried to control the mixture of fear and anger that was building up inside of her. She was terrified of him, just like she was of any death eater she had faced in the past, but her desire to sock him square in the nose was the stronger emotion in that moment. She was just about to lift her fist and knock that stupid grin off his face when she felt Malfoy's hand drop down on her forearm unexpectedly. "Indeed, she has," he answered for her, shifting his torso in a way that she was now slightly behind him and he was separating them without causing much notice. Jugson's smile dropped a few degrees as he looked back at Malfoy who was now extending his hand back out at him. "It was good to see you, Jugson." His tone was stern and there was no mistaking that their conversation was over, as brief as it had been.

"Uh, yes," the man agreed without certainty before glancing over at Hermione one last time. His eyes lingered on hers but they quickly snapped back to Lucius when he felt his hand being squeezed just a tad bit harder than before.

"We should have drinks sometime. Discuss how your probation is going perhaps. It must be quite the adjustment for you; although with the ministry officers checking up on us so often, it really does make staying in line quite easy, wouldn't you agree?" Lucius asked with an obvious warning between his words.

Jugson pulled his hand away and stared at Malfoy a moment longer. "Yes, of course. Drinks then." He confirmed and Malfoy nodded. They continued down the hallway towards the exits, Hermione still holding on to his arm, and began to leave the stadium to seek out their portkey's location.

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><p>While the stadium was still buzzing with overzealous fans buying souvenirs and trinkets from their favorite teams, the outer grounds surrounding the massive open-roofed building was almost deserted. Most visitors didn't bother to hang around once outside the stadium. Apparation was possible for those heading over to the campgrounds and the port keys weren't far from the stadium either. Hermione had let her hand slip away from Malfoy as they stepped outside, her footsteps heavy on the dirt path beneath them. She wasn't stomping exactly but there was certainly some extra tension behind her steps and Lucius took notice. "You look bothered. Did you not have a good time?" He asked, slowing his pace to almost a near stop while she kept hoofing ahead of him.<p>

She stopped and snapped her head back at him, ignoring the way her hair flipped sharply over her shoulder at the sudden motion. "Of course I'm _bothered_! I had to see that disgusting man and couldn't do anything but stand there and listen to him. If I had my wand, at least then I could have…"

"You could have what?" Lucius interrupted, their steps now coming to a complete halt as Malfoy matched her raised volume. "He's not a death eater anymore. It's in the past."

"Oh come off it, Malfoy!" Hermione strode towards him as she rolled her eyes at his claims. "You know better than anyone that all that 'in the past' talk is just rubbish! Did you see the way he was looking at me? Eying me as if he wanted to curse me right where I stood! Men like him will never change!" Her voice was holding steady as her face began to flush with frustration and lingering anger at her encounter with Jugson.

Malfoy's mouth slipped open slightly as he caught her last statement clearly. He raised an eyebrow and replied, "Men like him… and what would you make of me then?" He asked. "Would I not fall into your rudely named category of 'disgusting' wizards?" Although there was still no one around to interrupt their argument, Lucius let his voice drop down to its normal level, having never been a fan of shouting.

Hermione paused. "That's different."

"How so?" Lucius pressed, trying to get her to see how blinded by the past she truly was.

She shook her head, not believing she really needed to explain something so simple to him. If he needed her to spell it out for him, she would. "Because you don't want to _kill_ me." She waited, but Malfoy didn't answer quick enough. "Bloody hell! Why don't you just go ahead and tell me how you really feel then? Go on! Do you want to kill me too? What do you want, Malfoy?" For some reason, she had expected a different reaction from him. She didn't know what exactly she was hoping for, but it certainly wasn't what he had given her; nothing.

She had been pushing herself forward to the point where she was almost directly in front of his face, save the small height difference between them. Malfoy straightened his back, pulling his chin upwards and his face away from hers, and swallowed down another ounce of hesitation. "I don't _care _about you. I just want my life back."

Hermione lingered in front of him as his answer sank in. It hurt and she didn't know why. He didn't matter either. In fact, she was almost certain that he mattered even less to her than she did to him. But…it hurt. Not enough to make her cry, like it would if Ron or Harry had said it, but it still left a stinging feeling that she had trouble shaking off. Part of her felt angry, but it was mostly at herself for being foolish enough to even let him bother her so much. She wanted to punch him, just like she would have done to Jugson if he hadn't stopped her, but she knew Malfoy wasn't even worth the effort. Pulling her face back to her own space and out of his, the young witch took a step backwards and felt her jaw tighten as she rolled her shoulders back and lifted her head. "Well, so do I." Before he knew it, he was staring at her back as she hurried away, pounding at the ground with every step.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Oops! It looks like Malfoy may have said the entirely wrong thing! Then again, can they really go an entire daynight without getting into some sort of argument? Is this her chance to finally seek out Ron and Harry and break back into their lives? Or is something going to keep Lucius and her together a bit longer? Guess we'll just have a wait and see ;)**_

_**Please write a quick review to let me know you guys are still reading and if so, what you think so far. It's very much appreciated. :)  
><strong>_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	14. Chapter 14

_**Author's Notes: Uploading this super quickly before work, so if you spot any errors, my apologizes. This chapter turned out a lot longer than I expected, but hopefully it isn't too horrible. :P Let me know what you think in the reviews and thank you for reading!**_

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><p>Chapter 14<p>

"Damn it," Lucius cursed under his breath. He rose his hand up just above his face, his thumb and index finger pressing against each of his temples as he groaned in frustration. It may have been the fire whiskey talking, and he scolded himself silently for not bringing a vial of his sobriety potion with him, but he had only had one drink. It was strong, but not strong enough to make him say something as stupid as he did. No, that was all him. He paced after her. "That's not what I meant to say. You misunderstood."

"No," Hermione snapped over her shoulder, pausing only to reply before continuing her long strides away from him. "I understood you perfectly, Malfoy."

Letting out a heavy sigh, the wizard behind her watched as she quickened her steps. "Where are you even going? In case you've forgotten, you're without your wand."

She forced out a sarcastic burst of laughter and replied loudly, "I'm well aware, thanks!"

"So then where do you think you're going? You won't get far." Lucius warned, still trying to keep up with her unnaturally speedy march. It was useless and as he realized what he was doing—chasing after her, he slowed down. "At least let me take you back to the Leaky Cauldron."

Her hair swished from the left to the right briefly as she shook her head firmly. "I'm fine, Malfoy. You go ahead and find Jugson and have that drink. Perhaps the two of you can discuss how killing me will disrupt your rehabilitation. It should be a fairly familiar topic—killing muggle-borns."

Lucius took in a deep breath and quickly calmed his rising temper. "Will you just listen to yourself for a second?" Hermione stopped, finally admitting to herself that she didn't have the slightest clue where she was going, but crossed her arms over her chest to retain as much control in her stance as she could. "The war is over, out here." He waved his hands at the space around them before pointing a long finger directly at Hermione's face. "You just can't seem to get it to end in there—in your head." Hermione frowned, not liking the way he was pointing at her. He lowered his hand. "There's no reason for myself, or Jugson, or anyone else to hurt you—,"

"There never was, but that didn't stop your side from vowing to murder people like me before. There doesn't need to be a reason with your lot." Hermione corrected him sharply.

He let out another irritated groan disguised as a breath and shook his head. "I really don't know what I need to say to convince you that you're wrong here. You're stuck in the—,"

"The past," Hermione interrupted, finishing his sentence with a roll of her eyes. "Yeah, I know. You keep telling me it's all in the past but _I'm_ tell _you_ that I know what I saw with Jugson no matter how much you deny it. It was the way he was looking at me, like I was **filth**!" Hermione spat out the last words, offended by the way they tasted on her tongue.

Malfoy jumped at the opening she was giving him. "And I took care of it, didn't I? We left, didn't we?" Hermione didn't answer and Lucius knew something was hitting home, gradually. Her eyes had shifted off to the side, focused on an irrelevant object in the distance. "Look at me." She tightened her arms over her chest and he could see her jaw clench. "Come on, look at me." He stepped forward, blocking her view and forcing himself to be the center of her attention for just that moment. She still looked agitated, but her eyes darted up at his. "My word may mean nothing to you, but it means everything to me. Just listen to me for the next two seconds, then if you still want to continue on your aimless march around the stadium, be my guest." He raised an eyebrow, questioning her level of corporation.

"I'm listening," the witch mumbled impatiently.

He took in a deep breath, not exactly sure of how or what he was going to try to explain to her, but decided quickly on the words that followed. "I may have misspoken earlier. I've invested my time and effort into securing your well-being. To say I don't care was a mistake." It was hard for him, she could see that much. He wasn't the type to apologize but that wasn't what he was doing at all; he was backtracking, spoken like the true politician he was.

Hermione held her eyes on him a moment longer before shaking her head away with a disgusted sigh. "Your two seconds are up, Malfoy. Have a great life. Be sure to stay out of mine." Her words were cold, but steady and as she turned to walk away, she didn't hesitate in her steps.

Malfoy reached forward and let his hand drop down onto her shoulder. "Stop being so stubborn and just let me take you back to the Leaky Cauldron."

Hermione twirled around, pushing his hand away as she faced him. "It must be amusing for you! Taking a muggle-born into your home and pretend that you want to help. It must have been one hell of a joke to you, wasn't it!"

"I—,"

"No!" Hermione held up her hands and cut him off before he could even begin. "You've had your chance to speak. Now it's my turn. All that talk, five questions each, nothing but the truth. It was all a lie and you thought I'd be stupid enough to believe any of it. Why? Because I'm a muggle-born? Because I was stupid enough to lose my wand in the first place?" Her eyes narrowed into harsh slits. "No wonder your family left you."

Lucius's face reddened with a mixture of humiliation and resentment. "Don't—,"

Hermione shook her head and pushed herself towards him, her back stiff and her chin tilted up so she was looking as straight into his face as she could. "No, I think I will. They were the only smart ones in all of this. Your wife and your son realized what I should have realized from the start. You're not worth their time, my time, our time. You're not worth anything, Malfoy." Her face twisted into a snarl as she could sense how much her words would burn into the ex-death eater before they even came out. "And it's _me_ that doesn't care about _you_, not the other way around. Don't get it confused."

His teeth were pressed together, grinding slightly as he stood by and let her talk to him the way she did. If it were any other time, maybe even only a few years ago, he would have stopped her. He would have pulled out his wand and crucio'ed her until she was a blubbering idiot. But as he thought of all the possible ways to shut her up, to make her regret how rude she had spoken to him, his words came back to haunt him. _'It's in the past.'_ Times had changed and if he did anything that he was thinking about now, the only place that'd take him would be to his cell back in Azkaban. "What would you have me do?" His voice was low and raspy, though not defeated enough to become a beg. He had never thought of himself as a beggar until Voldemort brought it out in him and he'd be damned if he would ever become one again. "If I went back and looked for Jugson, beat him to a pulp simply because he looked at you oddly, that wouldn't do anything. That wouldn't change anything for the better."

Hermione looked down and smiled weakly, slowly rocking her head from side to side. He wasn't getting it. "This isn't about Jugson. This is about you."

"But by your definition, we are one in the same. We both have similar pasts, therefore we must be identical now." He lifted his eyebrows and waited to see if she would catch on to how faulty her theory of ex-death eaters was. "You **must** be understanding what I'm trying to explain to you. You can't possibly be this blind, can you?" Lucius wasn't trying to use his words as an insult, but he was starting to lose ideas of how he could possibly make this any clearer to her. She was trapped in the past, in her previous judgments of him and the rest of the death eaters, and he couldn't figure out how to break her from it.

"Of course I understand you. I'm not stupid," Hermione breathed roughly. "It's just… I just don't—,"

"You just don't want to believe any of it." He finished for her. Hermione finally looked up, back up at his face and he could see a flash of recognition in her eyes. He nodded, confirming that he was right. "I wouldn't expect you to." They were both silent, unsure of where to take their conversation at that point, if there even was a conversation anymore. He was exhausted, drained of any mental motivation to carry on with their little debate over what was the truth and what was a lie. He pressed his eyes closed and ran a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face, and gave it one last half-hearted attempt. "Just, let me take you back. It'll ride on my conscience if something were to happen to you while you're unarmed."

Hermione paused as she mulled over his offer. "No." Lucius groaned and shook his head, not wanting to accept that her final answer was still a refusal. She continued, "I don't want to go back to the Leaky Cauldron." His face twisted as he questioned in his head whether he heard her correctly. "I want to play your _game_, Malfoy," Hermione announced with a slight twinge of sudden nerve. "And this time, I want ten questions."

Malfoy's frown slowly transformed into a smile as she clarified her meaning, and as she finished with her final request, it had turned into a full on smirk. He nodded and offered her his arm as he had done many times before on their outings. "As you wish."

XXX

The trek back to Malfoy Manor wasn't as difficult as the trip to the Quidditch game. Once they were far enough away from the stadium, via one of the portkeys, they were able to apparate straight to the manor. As if customary at this point, Lucius had taken them directly to the library, where he poured himself a drink from a bottle that was tucked away inside his desk. "You know, you really do seem like an alcoholic now that I've spent this much time with you." Hermione remarked from her usual spot on the sofa.

Lucius chuckled as he stood beside his desk with the bottle still in his right hand. "I take it you still won't be having any then?" He asked lightly. Hermione agreed to his assumption, causing him to shrug. "We're not going to have a repeat of last time, are we? Because once I sit down, I'm not getting back up. You can pour your own drink this time if you change your mind."

The way he patronized her, as if she was beneath him despite all his talk about how things had changed made her raise an eyebrow sarcastically. With a cheeky smile and a mock tone of cheery delight, the young witch replied, "Oh, don't worry. I'm sure."

Another shrug and Lucius was walking over to his side of the sofa with the single glass in one hand and the entire bottle in the other. He set it down on the small coffee table in front of them and leaned back against the cushy furniture. "Suit yourself."

"What are you even drinking? That looks like some demented dragon urine or something." Hermione asked, scrunching her nose up at the strong smell of the dark beverage. Three square ice cubes floated in the drink, lightening the color only slightly, but it was clear that its true color was as dark as the night's sky.

After taking a sip and resting the glass on the sofa's armrest, Lucius glanced at her carefully. "Are we beginning our questions already?"

Hermione looked surprised. "No, I mean, yes," she tripped over her words as she sorted out what she meant. "But that's not my first question. I was just curious."

Lucius looked down at his drink, swirling the ice cubes around in a circle once or twice with a soft chuckle. "You know what they say about curiosity and the cat." He heard Hermione hiss in a sharp breath from the other end of the sofa and brought his amused laugh down to a tame smirk. Perhaps it was too soon to joke about killing, even if he only implied about a cat. He shot her another sideways glance and assured her with a low, raspy voice—most likely an effect of the strong drink, "Relax. I was only kidding." He lifted his glass up to eye level, examining its contents with lidded eyes and added, "It's only rum. Black spiced rum." Another smile slid over his lips as a thought came to him that he felt the need to vocalize. "You'd make a horrible barmaid."

"Luckily that's never really been a great ambition of mine." Again, a cheeky tone came over her as she thought of how ridiculous an idea that would be.

"What exactly is your greatest ambition in life then?" Lucius asked casually before throwing in, "And please, for the love of everything sane and sacred, don't say world peace or to put an end to hunger."

She couldn't help but let out a short laugh at the way his face tightened in disgust at her possible answers. Of course he of all people would think of world peace as nothing more than a child's dream, an impossible feat in this imperfect world. She shook her head. "No, not even close actually. I want to write a book. A series of books truthfully. I want them to be a permanent tool in nearly every Hogwarts classroom, and never need replacing or upgrading due to outdated information or research. They'll be the most useful set of books on the required reading list every year, no matter if the student is a first year or a seventh year. Timeless, I guess you could call them."

Lucius opened his eyes a little wider at how determined she sounded, but he couldn't honestly say he was surprised by her answer. He knew it would have something to do with education and learning, remembering how she had said she wanted to become a professor someday. "That does sound ambitious."

Hermione nodded. "It's been something I've thought about ever since I first learned about Hogwarts and saw the books on the reading list. I wanted to be on there, a household name that everyone would recognize and associate with wizarding knowledge and education." Lucius took another sip from his glass and Hermione shifted on her cushion as she realized how quickly their conversation had gone off-topic. She had questions that she wanted answers to and there she was, talking about Hogwarts and books. "Was that your first question?"

Although slightly offended by her direct, to-the-point tone, the blonde wizard took one more drink from his glass, a slightly longer gulp this time, and gave a short jerk of his head. "We can say it was if you'd like."

"How in the world did a man like Jugson get on probation? He should be locked away in Azkaban or worse; not running around free as a bird." Hermione shook her head at how wrong the whole concept of this probation for death eaters was.

"_Free_," Lucius laughed briefly. "Right." He took the thought as nothing more than a joke and answered her, not even bothering to address her poor choice of words. "How do you suppose he managed it? The same way I did. He had something that the ministry wanted—information most likely or a useful contact, and they saved him for that purpose alone." Malfoy tossed her a rolling glance and added, "Besides, they didn't really have much to charge him with, what with how confusing everything was back then, so the thought of putting him in Azkaban for the rest of his life really wasn't an option unless they gathered more evidence against him."

"But he was at the final battle! He was fighting for Voldemort!" Hermione corrected him, certain that he must have already known everything she was telling him.

Malfoy shrugged lazily. "There really wasn't a headcount so unless there are enough eye witnesses that place a specific person in a specific place, doing a specific act, it isn't proof. Not legally anyway."

Hermione rolled her eyes at the technicalities and how irresponsible it all seemed. They were letting murderers walk the streets simply because they couldn't place the correct wands in the correct hands at the right times. "I suppose that's how you were saved then."

"Oh no," Lucius denied. "My money is what saved me," He sipped at his drink as he continued, "and the unique knowledge I've gained from my years of service. The only ones who could provide them with more answers than me, are dead." He pulled his lips back over his teeth as he said the last word, a distinct distaste for what it meant as he couldn't help but remember the fallen acquaintances he was referring to. They both let a moment of awkward silence pass naturally before Malfoy asked playfully, "Where did you think you were going without your wand?"

A light blush spread over her cheeks as she remembered how she seemed to march around the stadium pointlessly. "I don't even know. The first thought that I had was to go find Ron and somehow get over this anxiety long enough to see if he would forgive me and help me get back home with my wand. But then I realized that all of that depended on me even being able to face him without completely freaking out, which isn't likely. So then I decided to find out where the portkey to the Leaky Cauldron was, or the closest destination to it." Hermione looked down sadly. "But then I remembered that I don't have my wand and wouldn't be able to place protective charms on my room." The thought bothered her and she knew that she could never feel safe sitting in an unprotected room at night. Even when she was at home with her parents, she always kept a strong shield over the entire house, specifically her bedroom when she tried to sleep.

Lucius nodded. "Yes, it can be hard to rest knowing you're not protected by magic." Hermione felt herself smile involuntarily at his sense of understanding and folded her hands over in her lap.

As she thought of her next question, the witch's eyes narrowed, not sure at all of what his answer would be. "Did you really think I knew Ron was on the Chudley Cannons?" If he said yes, that means he had lied to her when she asked during the quidditch game, and if he said no, he would be admitting that he brought her to the game knowing there may have been another confrontation between them. It was a lose-lose situation that she hated to put anyone in, but it had been nagging her all night if he had planned it all out to end a certain way.

The pressure of how he replied had obviously hit him. Lucius bit gently at the inside of his right cheek and cocked his head towards her. "I didn't know for certain." Of course, he had found a way to avoid either answer and instead stuck with a neutral reply. Turning back to his glass and swishing the cubes around one more time, he continued. "I was hoping you didn't already know but when you didn't bother to ask which teams were playing, I figured it was safe to assume you didn't know about him." Hermione began to ask why he hoped she didn't know, but Lucius gave her a cocky grin. "One question at a time, remember?" She pressed her lips together and brought her arms over her chest. Lucius lifted his chin with the smile still fixed to his face. "You see? This is turning into somewhat of a normal conversation already. Before you know it, this will feel like less of a choreographed game and more natural." Hermione made a doubtful expression. A naturally flowing conversation with Lucius Malfoy was the last thing she could ever picture herself having, no matter how long they asked each other questions.

"Get on with it then," she urged him for his next inquiry.

Again, her tone bothered him, but he drank it down with another sip of his black rum. "What you said back there," he began, breaking his eyes away from her and instead locking in on the glass that he now cupped between his palms. "about my wife and son," he continued but paused to suck in a long strip of air through his nostrils. "Is that what you believe happened… why they left?"

Hermione hadn't been prepared for a question about his family. Her family, maybe, or perhaps a question about Ron and Harry, but for him to ask what she thought of his own loved ones was a curve ball. She felt her voice crack while still deep in her throat and swallowed it away before it could turn into a sound. "I don't know." She shook her head and blinked a little more than she had done a second before. It wasn't something she had ever really thought about until she said it back at the stadium. "I never really knew your wife, and I didn't know Draco well enough to know what he would have thought." She caught the corner of her bottom lip on the edge of her teeth and held it there as she searched for the appropriate thing to say in such an awkward situation. "He was your son." Her shoulder rolled over into a shrug and a soft smile pressed against her lips when she looked back at him. "You probably know him better than I do. Whatever you think they thought is probably right. I wouldn't know."

He took her sympathetic smile with a shrug of his own and mumbled quietly, "Maybe."

The library was so silent that as Hermione shifted in her seat, he could hear every inch of the sofa that she was touching rustle and give under her small frame. He wasn't speaking and she knew there really wasn't anything else she could tell him about how his family felt, so she asked him instead. "What do you believe?"

Lucius's head perked up as he glanced over at her for a few brief seconds. "Is that your next question?" He could tell she was thinking it over.

She hadn't planned on it being one of her ten official questions, but something inside her wanted to know the answer. It was a waste of a question, giving her no new information about the night's events or his intentions and motives with her, but before she could pull back her answer, her head was gently rising and falling a couple short strokes. "Yeah, it is."

As if on cue, he lifted his glass of black poison and swigged from it quickly, finishing off the last large gulp in one go. The wizard leaned forward and grabbed the bottle from the table, pouring himself another glass as he groaned out, "It's something that's crossed my mind more than once over the last few months." Just below the elbows, his forearms rested on the tops of his thighs as he glared down at his newly filled glass with a blank stare. "At first I blamed the war," as he spoke, his eyebrows rose, widening his eyes though Hermione couldn't say for certain if he was really seeing or simply remembering. "The ministry and Potter…" A quickly exhaled chuckle escaped him before he went on with his next name, "Even _Voldemort_ at one point." The name sounded foreign as it crawled up his throat and leaked from his lips. It had been taboo for so long that it no longer felt like a name at all, but a fowl curse. Lucius frowned, pressing his brows back down over his eyes and shaking his head at his own memories and thoughts as they crowded his head. "I blamed everyone except myself for things turning out the way they did." Hermione sat, pressed up against her corner of the sofa and watched as he spoke freely about something so personal. She almost didn't want to reply, not wanting to risk him shutting down and turning off to the entire topic. Luckily, she didn't have to. Malfoy pulled his drink in towards him and pushed himself back against the sofa, that same displeased scowl still hanging over his eyes. "When the owls stopped coming months ago, I had gotten my answer."

His glass was still half filled with the black spiced rum, but as quickly as he finished his words, he opened his jaw wider than before and tilted the entire drink into his mouth, swallowing it all down with a burning groan. Hermione couldn't take her eyes off of him, not even to watch as the drinking glass slipped out of his hand and rolled onto the sofa cushions between them. _'__**Now, **__he was done talking,' _she thought to herself, feeling an unnerving sense that she needed to say something. She couldn't just move right along with their game, ask him for his next question, and ignore everything he had just confessed to her, although she wished he hadn't. His eyes drifted over to her without moving his head, a sideways glance from under heavy lids. Hermione looked away, back down at the coffee table. "I'm sorry," the words finally came out with a breath, unsure if she even felt what she was saying.

A low chuckle rumbled through his chest and he asked, "Are you?" Hermione sunk back further into her end of the sofa and regretted saying anything at all. She should have just waited for his next question and let him humiliate her some other way. Her softness for other people's pain and discomfort had always been her biggest weakness. Lucius's chuckling slowly drained away and they were engulfed in silence one more time. She wanted to get up and leave, forget the rest of the questions she had left to give and answer, but she knew that there was more that she wanted to know, none of which pertaining to his family. Malfoy gave her another glance, this time not even bothering to linger on her longer than a couple seconds. "That was my next question by the way."

Hermione looked over at the rum-filled wizard. He couldn't possibly be serious. He was wasting one of his questions on whether or not she was really sorry for him. He hadn't even formed a proper question. Did he want to know if she was sorry for him or sorry for his situation? Or maybe she was sorry for his family for having to keep him company for so long. Perhaps it was a trick question that he wanted her to answer, knowing any reply she gave would be wrong no matter what she said. She flattened her lips together and explained, "It's just something people say in situations like that. It's customary, a common courtesy."

"So then your answer is no, you lied and you're not sorry." He lazily raised his hand and gave her a cheesy thumbs-up signal. "Good form, Miss Granger." The sarcastic tone he took was almost as offending as the obnoxious grin he flashed at her. "Really, how brilliant of you."

"That's not what I said, Malfoy." Hermione blurted out, putting an end to his act immediately before it could progress any further. "Yes, it's the right thing to say, but I don't say things just because I'm supposed to." He looked surprised by her correction, sitting quietly as she explained her stance. "And I'm not a liar." It seemed like he was going to say something, perhaps challenge her defense, but Hermione changed the direction of their conversation back to the original meaning of their game; questions. "My turn. Why did you hope I wouldn't know about Ron being on the team?"

Lucius was surprised. "I would think you already know the answer." An eyebrow jerked upwards before slowly sinking down to its normal placement. "If I had told you he was playing, would you really have agreed to come with me?" He asked the obvious.

"I know that." Hermione nodded. "What I meant was why did you want me to come there at all. Why not go to a restaurant or back to the bookstore? What was so special about the Quidditch game?"

"Well," Malfoy began, dragging out the first word as if collecting his thoughts. "It was the only place I knew for certain he would be."

Hermione's brows lowered as she tried to sort out what he was telling her. "So then you admit that you only brought me there because you wanted me to see him?"

Innocently, the blonde wizard clicked his tongue at her assumption. "No, I did also want to see the game after all." He smiled in her direction before looking back down at the glass lying on the sofa. "But yes, my main reason for taking you there was him."

"Why?"

Malfoy grabbed the glass he was ogling and filled it with another dose of rum. "Your turn is over, Miss Granger." Hermione rolled her eyes. The rules were ridiculous, only meant to keep them even and make sure no one got more information out of the other. A simple answer to such a small question surely wouldn't ruin their game entirely, she thought. Lucius paused as he tried to think of what he wanted to ask. The drink in his hand felt heavy and the only solution was to take another sip away. "After your books are all published, then what?" His tone sounded disinterested, as it typically did, but his face looked curious as he waited for her reply.

Hermione shrugged. "I've never really given it much thought actually. I suppose it'd be a quiet life. I'd teach at Hogwarts for the majority of my life of course, then maybe travel the world after I retire."

"You wouldn't want children?" Lucius asked. "I've always thought that was a goal for most women at one point or another; to get an education, maybe start a career, and settle down with a husband and a few kids."

The young witch shifted on the sofa, turning to sit so that her back was against the armrest and she was facing him better. It was a strain on the neck to have a conversation with someone at her original angle. "I used to want all of that. I think every girl does, even if it's only during childhood while playing with baby dolls or something." She shook her head, remembering how she had one particular doll when she was just a little girl. She took it everywhere with her for at least a month and never let it leave her side. One day, her mother put it in the wash while she was napping and when Hermione woke up to find it wasn't within arms length, she cried for half an hour straight until the washer and dryer finally gave her back her baby doll. She couldn't place why she remembered such an insignificant time of her life all these years later, but it seemed relevant to the current topic. "We were going to get married, like Harry and Ginny are. Ron wanted a large family, like his own. I don't have any brothers or sisters, so the thought of having at least a few children was nice to think about."

"But you don't want any now." Lucius said, waiting for her to confirm if he was right or wrong.

She nodded shortly. "I don't think I'd be a good mother anymore." A quick burst of laughter jumped out of her as she lifted her hands and motioned towards herself. "Look at me. I can barely even take care of myself anymore. Do you really think I'd be able to care for anyone else?" She laughed again at the thought, but Lucius could tell she was only smiling to prevent her from doing something else in front of him.

"Is that your next question?" He asked softly, carefully.

"No." Hermione's voice rose unexpectedly. She cleared her throat and repeated, "No, it was rhetorical." Lucius brought the glass back up to his lips as she asked, "Same question as before. Why did you want me to see Ron? You know that's the last thing I want to do."

His ice cubes had melted and although the rum tasted stronger alone, Lucius was beginning to become too buzzed to notice, or if he did, he didn't care. "That's exactly why. You told me you wanted to get better. The wedding isn't far away and you won't make any progress unless you're pushed a little. If you can't even bear to see him, I really don't think you'll be able to attend his sister's wedding." He snorted and added jokingly, "Unless we get you an invisibility cloak and sneak you in." Hermione looked up at him and Lucius caught the small glint in her eyes. "I'm not getting you an invisibility cloak," he laughed, shaking his head at how hopeful she had looked in that moment.

"It was worth a shot," Hermione mumbled under her breath.

Lucius laughed again. "I don't even have an invisibility cloak and if I did, you're still not getting it."

"Harry has one." Hermione remarked. "He got it from Professor Dumbledore in our first year."

"What a waste. A cloak with that much power might as well be useless in the hands of a child." Lucius almost didn't believe her, but knowing how strange Dumbledore had been with some of his decisions, he knew the odds of her lying were slim.

The thought of Harry in their first year made her smile. They were all so young, so little, that they could fit together underneath his cloak without any problems. Now, it could only conceal one person and even then, it was a tight squeeze without showing his or her ankles. "There's no doubt in my mind that it saved him from Voldemort at one time or another, so it wasn't useless at all." Lucius shrugged at her reference to the many times that the young boy defeated his previous Lord. They weren't particularly proud moments for the death eaters. Hermione noted his silence and added, "Besides, it belonged to his father so he knew Harry would want it."

"Ah," Lucius exclaimed as understanding hit him, "That makes sense then." He gave her a tilt of his head and gulped down some more rum. "Still, it's a powerful thing to give to a boy so young. Nevertheless, I do believe we're at the halfway point in our conversation for this evening. Do you need to take a break?"

He stood from the sofa while Hermione stayed seated. "Why would I need a break? I'm just getting started."

Lucius picked up the bottle of rum off the coffee table and walked it back to his desk. "Simply checking in. I don't want to bore you with too much aimless chatter all at once." He set the bottle down into the drawer it had came from and returned to the sofa. "It is late after all. I don't want to look over and find you sleeping."

"Oh, I doubt that would happen." Hermione assured him confidently.

Malfoy let an arm flop onto the back of the sofa while his other hand rested on his knee. "And why is that? You seem to be sleeping better than when you first arrived unless I've been told wrong."

"Is that your question then?" Hermione asked before answering. Lucius tilted his head towards her as if to agree and she went on. "I'm able to sleep through the night most of the time. I only woke up once last night and that was because I had kicked my blanket off the bed and couldn't find it in my sleep." Malfoy gave a soft chuckle and Hermione joined in briefly. "So in that sense, it's getting better, but I still can't seem to get away from these dreams. They're getting stranger, more absurd, and although not all of them are frightening anymore, I can't seem to make sense of any of them."

Lucius's mind was going, already starting to form his next question in his head. "You're turn." He offered, wanting to get back to his inquiries quickly.

Hermione looked down at the sofa, hesitating on her thoughts before finally pushing the words out. "Jugson…he's in this new death eaters group—the Voldemort Retention Strike, isn't he?"

A brief wave of surprise flashed over his eyes before quickly disappearing, absorbing into his amused smirk. "You're very intuitive." He remarked. "Much more observant than I thought you'd be." Glancing over her for an extra second or two, Lucius lifted his chin and answered. "He is." Malfoy cleared his throat and readjusted on the sofa, shifting the hand that was on his knee, onto the armrest, and bringing his other hand off the back of the sofa and onto his thigh. "You said you had a dream last night. Tell me about it."

There was a short pause, a brief hesitation and although Malfoy didn't note it verbally, Hermione spotted his eyes taking in every inch of her body language. She sat up straighter and crossed her arms over her chest. "It was just really odd, not at all what I normally dream about, and I can't make any sense of what it means, if anything. It could mean absolutely nothing. In fact, it probably doesn't mean anything. I'm just over thinking it is all. Nothing-,"

Lucius pressed his lips into the charming grin he put on for the reporters and Daily Prophet photographers. "I didn't ask what it meant. Just explain what it was about, that's all." Again, he pushed a smile towards her and although she knew it was fake, it felt better than having him just stare at her silently.

She swallowed and thought of how to begin. "We were here, in the library."

"We?" Lucius asked, his interest perking instantly.

Hermione tucked a loose strand of her unruly hair behind her ear and forced out a nod. "I told you, it was absurd." Malfoy nodded in return, permitting her to continue without further judgment. "We had just gotten back from the bookstore and were reading. I suppose a few hours passed, and then we had some tea. But then it really started to get strange." Lucius's eyebrow twitched upwards and Hermione nodded again, urging it down to a less curious state. "It was Harry."

"Potter?" Lucius spat out, more confused than curious at this point.

Hermione snorted out a quick giggle at his surprise. "Yes, he's the only Harry I know." Malfoy began to explain that she knew who she meant, stopping when she told him she was only joking. "But that's why it was really odd. Harry walked in and sat down between us, picked up a book, and started reading. He even took a sip from your tea at one point. I thought for sure you were going to throttle him then, but you didn't. It was as if you didn't even see him sitting right next to you." Lucius looked lost. "He didn't say anything to either of us, just read for a bit and then left. Neither of us said anything after he went. It's as if none of it ever happened. It was just so weird and I can't figure out what it means."

"The dream ended there?" Lucius asked.

Hermione shrugged. "No, but the rest isn't really important."

He could tell she was holding it back on purpose. "I asked to hear the whole dream, not just bits and pieces. Go on." Lucius replaced his hand on the back of the sofa again, resting it between them equally.

"Well," Hermione's eyes hit the floor and bounced between that and the coffee table in front of her, avoiding every other spot in the room, especially Lucius. "It was really out of the ordinary, quite impossible actually. Completely ridiculous now that I think about it and really-,"

"I'm waiting," Lucius reminded her, urging her to move forward and get on with it.

"Right," she nodded with a quick glance before returning back down to the table. "We finished in the library and went to the dining room for a late dinner." Hermione stopped and noticed Lucius staring, waiting to hear where her dream would take them next, but it didn't go any further. They ended in the dining hall, but they weren't the only ones there. She bit her bottom lip for a second before adding, "Professor Snape was there, eating dinner with us."

Lucius kept his eyes on her a moment longer before blinking away. "And that's the impossible part you were referring to?" Hermione nodded quietly. "I see." They both paused, sitting silently in their thoughts before Malfoy announced, "Well, the only thing that could mean is that…" He glanced back over at her with a smirk, finishing, "You have absolutely ridiculous dreams."

Hermione laughed, accompanied by Malfoy's steady chuckles. "As if you've never had completely random dreams, Malfoy. Every dream can't make perfect sense every time, otherwise it wouldn't be a dream." Hermione thought of her next question. "What do you dream of?"

Malfoy's smirk faded away as the conversation returned to its serious nature. "I don't dream most nights, or maybe I just don't remember them." He shrugged and noticed she was still waiting for an answer. "But I suppose when I do dream, they're similar to the ones you've been having the past couple years. Memories from the battles, fears of it ending poorly; we're really not too different in that sense."

"But your nightmares don't have death eaters trying to kill you or killing your family and friends." Hermione corrected him. "It **is**different."

"On the contrary." Lucius frowned. "The only times I dreamt of your side was when I was remembering my time in Azkaban, and imagining my wife and son being prosecuted by the ministry for my crimes." He shook his head. "Everything else was always with the Dark Lord, and his followers."

Hermione rolled her eyes with a groan. "Oh come on, Malfoy. You were his right hand man. You were the safest out of any death eater."

With a sharp glance in her direction, Lucius shook his head. "You would think that, wouldn't you?" Another slow shake of his head, and Lucius answered. "No, he was always so angry. It was absolutely terrific if I managed to gain some sort of praise from the Dark Lord, but it was always short lived. The golden boy Mr. Potter would crash in, humiliate him in front of all his followers, and the Dark Lord would take it out on those closest to him." Lucius waved his hand carefully through the air and added, "I suppose he needed to assure us that he was still just as strong as ever, despite Potter beating him time and time again, but we always got the brunt of his attentions-Severus and I."

Hermione sat quietly, not knowing what she could really say to combat what she was hearing. Voldemort was a cruel, brutal leader; that much has always been obvious to everyone, but to actually hear a first hand account of what it was like to serve under such a sadistic commander was unbelievable. "I was hoping Bellatrix was also on that list." Hermione announced, displeased.

"Oh, she was." Lucius reassured her. "But she was so far gone at that point, it really didn't matter to her whether he tortured her or not. It only made her want to please him even more." Malfoy dropped his eyes and swung his head from side to side in disappointment. "I just wish Draco hadn't seen any of it. I've always told him not to watch, but there's really nothing to be done when a body drops down on the table in front of him."

He looked so disappointed and Hermione couldn't tell if he was still thinking about Bellatrix and Voldemort, or if he was bothered by the way Draco was raised, what he was subjected to during his teenage years. She gave him another moment to collect his thoughts before awkwardly nudging, "It's your turn."

As if forgetting that he still had three more questions to ask, Malfoy snapped his head back up to a normal seating position and recomposed himself to his naturally hardened state. "Yes, of course. Staying on the current topic, after attending the Quidditch match, what do you think you'll dream of tonight?"

Hermione frowned. She hadn't given it any thought, assuming her dreams would be just as random as they had been already. Either a horrible nightmare about Lord Voldemort and the death eaters, or maybe a memory of the past, but she couldn't predict which one would haunt her tonight. It may not even be a nightmare. It could be a completely implausible dream like the one she had the night before. She shrugged. "I don't know. It might be about Ron, since I saw him at the game, or Jugson could be in it. I haven't been able to track any sort of reasoning behind what I do and what I dream about."

Lucius nodded. "Fair enough." During her answer, Malfoy had pulled the empty drinking glass back into his hands and started playing with it. His fingers were dancing around the rim and as he spoke, his eyes loosely watching the way his ring finger circled the glass, Hermione could tell he wanted another drink already.

"Does the drinking ever help?" Hermione knew she would scold herself later for wasting one of her last questions on such a silly thing, but he seemed to drink so much. There must be some benefit to it that she wasn't seeing.

Noticing her watching him, Lucius pushed the glass onto the coffee table and stared down at it. "No, but it postpones everything for a little while. Numbs it all for a few hours until I start to regain sobriety." He could tell Hermione was thinking of mothering him, warning him that excessive drinking would do him more harm than good, and he didn't want to hear any of it. "It gives me a break from thinking for the night." He pressed a finger to his temple and added, "Sometimes the thing that gets in our way the most is our own head." Hermione had given it a thought over the past two years, but if she was worried about getting addicted to sleeping potions, alcohol wasn't any better. Lucius's sobriety potion may be preventing him from turning into a complete drunk, but it was still not something Hermione would ever consider for the long term. "Have you given any thought to what you'll be bringing as a wedding gift? You haven't asked to go to any shops in particular," Lucius asked gently.

It took Hermione by surprise. She hadn't even thought of a wedding gift. She was so concerned with whether or not she'd even be able to go, but now that he'd mentioned it, she knew showing up without the perfect gift wasn't acceptable at all. "I actually hadn't thought of it. I don't even know where to begin. I'll have to find something perfect."

"Well, you've got a month to decide. Let me know where you'd like to go, or if you need assistance in acquiring something." Malfoy offered casually.

Again, Hermione was surprised. She was still not used to him being anything except absolutely vile to her, a muggle-born. When he didn't follow up with some insult or claim his offer to be some sort of a joke, Hermione nodded. "Thank you. I'll let you know." Malfoy mimicked her gesture silently and Hermione let it end there. It still felt oddly uncomfortable to thank a death eater, even if he was claiming to be rehabilitated. It wasn't a natural thing for Hermione to do and she felt it. "You told Jugson you'd have a drink with him sometime."

"Yes, I did." Malfoy confirmed calmly.

Hermione scowled and asked, "Will you? Being seeing him again, I mean."

Lucius shrugged indifferently. "We haven't exactly set a date or time, so I don't know. I suppose if he contacted me again and arranged something that suited both our schedules, I wouldn't have any objections." Hermione's frown deepened and although it wasn't entirely obvious, Lucius caught sight of it before she pulled on her usually neutral expression. She didn't like Jugson, that much he knew for certain, but did she really expect him to never see him again? They kept the same company, were in similar social circles, and both participants in the ministry rehabilitation program. They were bound to see each other again at some point. He looked back down at his empty glass on the coffee table and wondered if she would be any more offended than she was then, if he got up and poured himself another glass. "Why does my drinking bother you? From what I've heard, I'm fairly pleasant company, even while intoxicated."

She thought of lying, saying it didn't bother her at all, but Hermione knew if he was asking, she must have made her opinion known without vocalizing it. Besides, this game, this room, it was all about truth and honesty. If she lied, that would bring an end to all of that. She tried to appear as unbothered as possible and brushed off his question with a simple, "I don't like seeing anyone destroy themselves." Malfoy glanced over at her quickly, rejecting the idea that he was somehow _destroying_ himself by having a few drinks every so often, but let her be. It was her opinion and his question. If he didn't want to hear the answer, he wouldn't have asked it to begin with. "Even you." Hermione added softly, staring down at the glass that was now in his hands. He meant to go put it back in his desk drawer but her words stopped him. _'Even you' _he repeated in his head. Was it meant to sound harshly, a judgment on the type of man he was and therefore an insult? Or was she actually being civil and genuinely cared whether he drank himself into a mess in front of her or not? Malfoy shook it off. He may not have been a mess quite yet, but he was intoxicated enough to have no interest in deciphering her wording. He stood from the sofa and walked the glass over to his desk when a thought came to him. Her last question was still bothering him and he wanted an answer to put his mind at ease of why she asked it. "Would it bother you if I did see Jugson again?"

Hermione sat silently for a moment, mentally counting down the number of questions they each already used for that evening, and when she was certain she was right, she reminded him firmly, "You've already asked ten questions."

Lucius dropped the glass into the drawer and walked back around to the front of the desk, leaning against its edge with his arms crossed over his chest. "I know." His eyes watched her as she got up from the sofa and aimlessly poured over the titles on the bookshelves. "The game is over for tonight. You can lie if you feel you must, though it's a simple question."

It was confusing and as she pulled a book off the shelf in front of her and let her eyes carelessly skim over its contents, she couldn't tell if he expected her to lie or not. It was true, their game was over, but as he stated already, it was an innocent question. What harm could come from her being honest for just a moment longer? Hermione's back was still facing Lucius, busy with the book in her hands and although she knew his eyes were on her, she felt no need to acknowledge him physically. Instead, she lowered her gaze down just past the book, with her head tilted slightly in his direction, and answered, "Yes, it would bother me."

He knew she couldn't see him, not from the angle she was facing and where he was against his desk, but he nodded anyway. "Then I won't see him again," Lucius replied softly. Hermione remained still as she thought over what he was agreeing to, before she nodded silently and returned back to her book. _Now_, their conversation was over.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Thank you for reading and hopefully reviewing! Things are progressing a little bit more between Lucius and Hermione. The next update will most likely not be until the end of June. Sorry!<strong>_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	15. Chapter 15

_**Author's Notes: I managed to squeeze out this next chapter sooner than I thought! Let me know what you think in the reviews. I love reading them. Enjoy :)**_

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><p>Chapter 15<p>

The night passed quickly and by the time Hermione rolled out of bed early in the morning, she was stunned. Blinking away the sand from her eyes and marching her way into the bathroom, the cold marble tiles beneath her feet waking her up even more with each step, she paused in front of the mirror. She appeared to be awake and no matter how long she stared at her own reflection in front of her, no monsters popped up behind her. No one in a death eaters mask barged into the bathroom and demanded her life, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was still trapped in a dream. With a high-pitched squeak of the old metal sink handles, Hermione turned on the tap and let a pool of lukewarm water fill the basin. She pinched her cheek firmly and let go, acknowledging that it hurt slightly. _'If I were still dreaming, I wouldn't have felt a thing,'_ she thought silently. Realizing the sink was about to overflow, she snapped the handles back to their neutral positions and took one last look at the mirror before splashing her face. _'My first nightmare-free, dream-free night… I had expected it to feel different…more,'_ she thought, searching for the right word to suit her expectations. _'triumphant.'_

Finding a hairbrush in one of the bottom drawers of the washroom's cabinets, she dragged it through her hair and tried to tame the mess that had accumulated on her head overnight. It was a struggle she was familiar with by now and after the first few strokes, she was lost in thought. One of Lucius's questions last night was still wearing on her mind. What **was** she going to give to Harry and Ginny for their wedding? She had absolutely no idea and although she was happy about finally having a dreamless night to rest, a dream providing her with a hint of what to get for them would have been more than welcomed. She tugged at a knot and ran over the obvious options in her head. Something Gryffindor-related or even just Hogwart-related, but did she really want to go down that cheesy path? If she wanted to get more specific, she could easily find a Quidditch present for Harry, but where would that leave Ginny? She had always enjoyed the wizarding sport just as much as every other witch her age, but somehow a Quidditch item didn't seem to meet the high requirements Hermione was picturing. Hermione walked back through the bedroom and into the main sitting room, searching for a clock. Still pulling the brush through her hair, she frowned and realized putting some sort of timepiece in this massive suite had obviously been overlooked by whoever had decorated. _'Probably Mrs. Malfoy._' She stopped and withdrew the brush from her head and stared down at it with repulsion. Nothing but her own chestnut strands stuck tangled in the brush's bristles; no silver to be found. Hermione walked over to the large dresser in the bedroom and set the brush down on top, quietly laughing at herself for even allowing such a foolish thought to go through her. _'She's probably never even seen this brush, let alone used it! A manor this big is bound to have a hairbrush in every room, include her own.'_ The young witch glanced back at the brush and noted how it looked brand new and wondered if perhaps Ginny would be happy with an engraved hairbrush as a wedding present. She shook her head in disgust. _'Ugh, really Hermione? A hairbrush? You can do better than that…'_

She dropped the brush into one of the top drawers and started digging through the rest of the dresser's compartments for a set of clean clothes. Knowing how much Mimbi enjoyed Hermione's company, the little elf somehow managed to find which room she was occupying for the night, and tucked away all the necessities without Hermione's knowledge. As she reached the bottom drawer and spotted a freshly washed outfit, complete with a witch's robe-a deep red this time, Hermione smiled. She would have to stay awake one night and find out when the house elf popped in to deliver them. Hermione shrugged them on and walked back to the mirror to see how it looked. Another perfect fit, straight down to the way the waist of the robes crimped inward to flatter her feminine frame. Her mind drifted back to the wedding. _'What if Malfoy's wrong? What if they don't want me there and I end up causing a scene just by showing up?'_ She ran her hands down the front of the robes aimlessly and shook the idea out of her head. These were her friends, her substitute family during all those years at Hogwarts. If they really didn't want her there, they wouldn't have offered for her to come. _'But so what if they're happy with me being there? What if one of their other guests isn't, and starts arguing with me and ruining their day? Ginny would never forgive me…'_ Again, she threw the thoughts out of her mind and took in a deep breath. "Hermione Granger, you are a competent, skilled witch, and…" she tucked a strand of fly-away hair behind her ear in a less than smooth manner and rolled her eyes at the reflection of herself. "And despite not being a perfect social butterfly, you are well-liked." As her eyes bore into themselves through the glassy surface hanging above the sink, she added, "by most people." A sudden reminder of all the many, many death eaters who hated muggle-borns interrupted her and she rephrased, "…some people." As her little self-motivating pep talk faded away, she wondered who would actually be at the wedding. The Weasley family, of course, as well as their old Gryffindor friends, both Harry's and Ginny's. That alone could add up to well over fifty people, easily. If she were to include all the professors-there was no doubt that all of them would want to congratulate their famous student on his special day, then it'd most likely jump to almost a hundred guests. _'Who wouldn't want to be at Harry Potter's wedding? He's the savior of the wizarding world!'_ She paused and suddenly realized just how massive this event might be. He was, after all, the only wizard to ever defeat Lord Voldemort. Like she had thought, who _wouldn't_ want to be a part of anything Harry did now? He was even more famous than when they were in Hogwarts, and back then people were always staring at them and giggling with joy when Harry would glance back. Hermione shook her head. This wedding might be a lot bigger than she had imagined.

Just as she started to convince herself that Ginny would never put up with such an enormous, publicly open wedding, there was a knock on her door. She pressed her brows together and left the washroom with another quick glance at the mirror. It must have been later in the morning than she thought if Mimbi was coming to wake her already. As she passed through the bedroom and into the main room to grab the door, Hermione cursed at the thought of oversleeping. It was such a horrible way to waste a perfectly good morning. "I'm sorry. I really need to find a clock, Mimbi. Maybe an alarm clock so I don't sleep half the day away," she began as she pulled the door open, but it wasn't the little elf that greeted her.

With a slightly raised eyebrow, the blonde wizard replied, "I'll pass along your request."

"Oh," Hermione said, surprised to see him instead. "I thought you were someone else." He nodded, having heard Mimbi's name in the mist of her early morning ramblings. She blushed and secretly relieved that she had enough sense to change into her robes so soon after waking, otherwise there's no doubt in her mind she would have answered the door in the nightgown she had worn to bed. Lucius was staring impatiently. "Oh, come in." She finally snapped to her senses when she realized he was waiting by the door for a reason. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Malfoy?" She asked sarcastically as they both walked over to the small set of armchairs in the corner of the room.

"You seem well," he remarked. Hermione nodded with a soft smile. "Had a restful night, I assume?"

Again, Hermione nodded. "I did. Absolutely no dreams." She announced with a slight twinge of pride shining through her words. After over two years of nothing but nightmares and more recently, completely absurd dreams of Harry and her dead potions master, a night with nothing but sleep was quite the accomplishment.

Lucius's face broke out into an enthusiastic grin and he cheerfully praised her achievement. "That's terrific! I believe congratulations are in order! And celebration as well, over drinks!"

Hermione frowned and she almost didn't believe what she was hearing. "I may not have a clock, but it's still morning! I know that much!"

A soft chuckle rolled through him as he saw how quickly he managed to get a rise out of her. "It was a joke." He explained, still playing with the amused smile across his lips.

Hermione shook her head slightly—not amused—and asked, "I'm sorry but why did you say you're here?"

He tucked at the front of his robes, adjusting them casually as he quickly slid back into his extremely controlled, proper demeanor. "I wanted to show this to you." Hermione's interest peaked as she realized it wasn't to ask her if she would go out somewhere with him to pose for pictures. He buried a hand in his inner cloak pocket for a moment before pulling out a small flat box. It was a little larger than his palm and was a solid black color with gold trim. He held it out to her.

She didn't take it. "What is it?"

"Open it,"

With a weary eye darting between Lucius and the black box, Hermione took it from him and gauged the weight. It wasn't particularly heavy, but it wasn't light either. It felt exactly how it looked, which didn't help her in the least. Lucius raised an eyebrow and nodded towards the box, silently repeating himself as she eyed him suspiciously. The suspense was killing her. She opened it. "Oh," Hermione breathed out quietly.

"Oh?" Lucius repeated with an anxious smile. "Is that a good 'oh' or a bad 'oh'?"

Hermione stared down at the box and its contents. "Just…oh," she answered. Resting the box in her lap, she carefully picked up the elaborately crafted gold necklace from its case and held it out to look at it better. To say it was beautiful was to say the sun was hot. It wasn't only beautiful; it was absolutely stunning. The main chains were gold but every few spaces there was instead, a gemstone. They colors made absolutely no sense, almost forming a rainbow pattern if there had been more of them, but there were only a few spread throughout the chain. They sparkled when she twisted the necklace against the light and had an ancient feel to them. After staring at the jewelry for another few seconds, Hermione let it drop back into the box gently. "It's incredible, but what is it for?"

Lucius nodded back down at the necklace and answered, "It's for you," clarifying, "to give to Potter and his bride-to-be. You said you haven't thought of what to bring to the wedding yet, correct?" Hermione noted that he didn't name Ginny specifically and wondered if he even would have known her name if he hadn't secretly slipped her Tom Riddle's diary all those years ago.

She shook her head. "I can't give this to Ginny. She'll never accept anything from you, not after what you did to her."

"She won't be accepting anything from me. She'll be accepting it from you." Lucius corrected her hopefully.

Hermione shook her head again. "It's the same thing. Whether you give it to me to give to her or you give it to her directly. It's still coming from you. I can't do that to her." She snapped the box closed with a loud clapping sound and handed it back to Malfoy. "Thank you for trying to help, but I really can't."

Lucius looked down at the jewelry box and pushed it back towards her with an open palm. "Keep it then."

"I can't. I mean, it wouldn't be right. This is obviously really nice and I can't—," Hermione began to push it back towards him.

He leaned back and held up his hands away from the box, refusing to take it back. "It's your's." He insisted. "I never did welcome you properly. Consider this my way of welcoming you back to the wizarding world."

Hermione gave up trying to hand it back to him since he obviously wasn't going to accept, and set the box down on the table between their chairs. "Thank you, but there's really no need. Like I said, once I get my wand back, I'll be returning to my parents' home. It'll be as if I was never even here." She smiled sweetly, trying to press her point as clearly as possible that she wasn't going to take the necklace from him, no matter what reason he gave her.

"The decision's already been made." Lucius stated flatly and pulled his eyes away from the box as soon as it hit the table's surface. "You can throw it away if you'd like, though I can't promise I won't take it as a personal insult."

Hermione rolled her eyes; she would throw it away once she was alone. "So you're here because you wanted me to give Ginny a necklace from you?" She asked, her words laced with a doubt that she didn't even try to conceal. "That's all?"

Malfoy noted her hasty tone and knew his welcome into her room was quickly disappearing, despite the room technically being his. He lowered his lids lazily and took in a deep breath. She had a way of getting into him without even trying. Her dismissing tone irritated the hell out of him and he swore she had no right to have that type of control over him; no mudblood did, no matter how much of a natural annoyance they might be to him. _'Years ago if she dared to take that insufferable attitude with me...'_ Lucius muttered silently in his head before letting the thought fade. It wasn't years ago anymore, and no matter how much he wanted to do things the old ways, things had changed. He grit his teeth and shook his head as he answered, "No, of course that's not _all_." He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the idea that he would take time out of his own morning just to deliver her a necklace which Mimbi could have easily done for him. "I was given information on the whereabouts of your wand early this morning and—,"

The disinterest vanished from her eyes and Hermione leaned in closer eagerly. "Have you found it? Do you know where it is now?"

"Interrupt me again." Malfoy urged her with a warning glare. Hermione leaned back quietly and Lucius nodded with a smirk. "If you would have let me finish, you would already know that it's not your wand I've found, but the person in possession of it."

Hermione waited until she was sure he was done before asking curiously, "Well...who is it?"

The blonde wizard shook his head. "I don't know."

"But you just said—,"

"I don't know his name. Some nobody, used to work for the ministry as a custodian five or six years ago but after getting terminated, he's gone off the map. He took the Dark Lord's mark a few years back and has been known to turn up in Knockturn Alley every so often with things to pawn, most likely stolen." Hermione glanced down at his arm as Lucius mentioned the dark mark; he had subconsciously fiddled with his sleeve and Hermione was sure it still itched from time to time. "I'm almost positive I must have seen him at one point or another, either at the ministry or while conducting my own business in Knockturn Alley, but as I said, he's a nobody. I wouldn't have conversed with him at all and if I did, it wasn't worth remembering."

"And we don't even have a name to go on?" Hermione asked.

Lucius shook his head. "No."

She tried not to get disappointed but it wasn't much to go on at all. "Do you know what he looks like at least?"

With a short pause, Lucius shook his head again. "I've been told dark hair, brown, maybe black. Medium build, somewhere between five and six feet tall." He shrugged. "Very generalized features." Hermione chose then to roll her eyes, a mix of frustration and the disappointment she was waiting for.

"That doesn't help us at all. You've just described half of the male population, probably more." Hermione let out a sigh.

"He has a scar," Lucius held up his hand and faced the palm towards him, showing her the back of it. "On his left hand," He finished, pointing at his own hand as a reference. "From an old scuffle that ended with a stab wound I believe, giving him the scar."

Hermione perked back up. "That's more like it! You should have said that first."

Lucius shrugged. "I didn't want to get your hopes up, since I have no idea where he is. I was told he visits a pub in the back of Knockturn Alley occasionally, but whether he shows up tonight or not for another week, or month even is completely impossible to predict."

"Then we'll have to stake it out. We'll go there every night and wait to see if he shows." Hermione explained enthusiastically. The possibility of getting her wand back was sparking her impatience even more than usual.

Malfoy shook his head and stopped her. "_We_ aren't going anywhere. You're staying here."

"Of course I'm going. It's my wand!" Hermione insisted.

"After what happened last time, do you really expect me to bring you along? You couldn't even do something as simple as keeping your mouth shut and nearly got us killed for it. What are you going to do if he actually shows up? Tackle him? No, you're staying." Lucius repeated firmly, crossing his arms over his chest smoothly.

Hermione groaned. "It's **my** wand, Malfoy. I deserve to be there. How do I know you won't just run off with it once you find it?"

Lucius laughed sarcastically. "Why would I abandon my home, my probation, and the progress I've made so far with the ministry, just to take off with your wand?"

Hermione snapped back, "You abandoned the manor before after Voldemort was killed."

"Correct, for my life, not some useless wand." Lucius shook his head at the thought of leaving the comfort of his own home just to spite her. He pulled out his own wand and raised an eyebrow mockingly. "I have my own wand. I don't need, nor do I want your's."

He tucked it away and Hermione's face dropped as she saw his wand. She felt so inadequate without hers and there he was, an ex-death eater and known criminal, able to draw his wand whenever he wanted. It was irritating, but not entirely crushing. "I'm going, Malfoy and if you try to stop me, I'll go to the Daily Prophet and tell them that you've had me under the imperio curse this entire time."

Lucius grimaced with first confusion and then disgust. "What?"

"You heard me, Malfoy. I'll tell them that you kidnapped me from the safety of my parents' home just so you could pretend to be a hero and get a gold star from the ministry." Hermione crossed her arms over her chest confidently and smiled at him, knowing she had won.

"You're absolutely mad." Lucius exclaimed. "They'll examine my wand and know I haven't used the imperio curse for years, especially not on you. No one will believe you."

"Harry will." Hermione interjected. "And Ron. Ginny, her parents and brothers. Every Order member and victim of the death-eaters will believe me." She shrugged happily. "Practically everyone, Malfoy. No one likes a death-eater." Her nose scrunched up as she said the last word distastefully.

Malfoy stared her down, a thousand yard stare ending with a slow shake of his head. "You won't," He said with an overconfident grin. "You're bluffing."

Hermione returned his smile and cocked her head to the side. "Am I? Should we give it a try and see for sure?" When Malfoy didn't move, Hermione stood and began walking towards the door.

He chuckled. "Where are you going? The ministry's no where near here."

"You're right," Hermione confirmed. "But there's a floo connection a few rooms down the hall. I spotted it the other night."

Malfoy's grin slipped away in a matter of seconds and as she just started to open the door, he bolted from his seat and pushed the door closed from behind her. She turned the knob again and it popped open for a brief second before he slammed it shut again, this time grabbing her and pinning her back against the door's surface. He had a hand on either side of her head, his arms blocking her from moving to the sides without actually making any sort of physical contact. It wasn't getting opened for a third time. "You've made your point," he growled.

"I'll be going with you then." Hermione announced as she glared at him firmly for confirmation. He nodded, his resentment for her streaming all over his face at this point, and Hermione nodded back, satisfied. "Good. Now that that's straight..." She pushed one of his arms up and dipped underneath it, walking away from the wizard, and left him standing with his hands still against the door. "Why does he have my wand? How did he even get it?"

He was annoyed. He was still pinning an invisible body against the door, staring at the spot where her head had been moments ago, and trying to register why his intimidation didn't seem to touch her. _'It's because you're not a death-eater anymore. What does she have to fear from a pet of the ministry?'_ He shoved the thought out of his head and pulled his hands away from the door, balling them up into fists, before tucking them under his armpits with his arms across his chest. He stayed by the door, leaning his back against it, and spotted her sitting back over by the pair of armchairs. He clenched down on his jaw and tried to press a somewhat convincing smile through his lips. "I can't say for certain but he's probably lost his own wand and needed a replacement. Or his was being traced by the ministry. Either way, I doubt he even knows it's yours."

Hermione pulled back her lips in disgust. The thought of some criminal doing who-knows-what with her fairly innocent wand was disgusting. If he's murdered with it, would it respond differently to her touch once she gets it back? After all, Mr. Ollivander had told Harry that wands had feelings and could behave differently depending on who was wielding it. _'What if it prefers this death-eater instead of me?'_ She shook her head and tried not to think about any of it. It was her wand and when she got it back, it would work exactly the same, no matter what it's being put through at the moment.

"What are you thinking?"

"What?" Hermione asked.

Malfoy repeated. "What are you thinking about?" His eyes were fixed on her. She must have shown some sort of emotion as she thought about her wand, otherwise she doubted he would bother asking a question like that. In fact, she wouldn't have thought he would ask it even if he did notice her thinking about something.

Hermione shook her head slightly and replied, "Nothing. I was just wondering what time we should go to the pub. If he comes in early and we don't leave until late, we'll miss him."

"He won't come in early." Malfoy disagreed. "Someone like that, he's not going to move around until maybe ten or eleven at the earliest. Any other time and there'd be too many people around."

"If he's going out to a pub, wouldn't people see him anyway, no matter how late it is?" Hermione asked.

Malfoy lifted his chin and raised an eyebrow at her naïve nature. "This pub...people understand the importance of keeping ones business to himself. The Dark Lord himself could walk in and while he may get a few rather curious glances, you won't see anyone rushing to call the ministry."

Hermione frowned. "That's horrible. I'll never understand your lot. Why turn a blind eye when they could just do the right thing?"

"Why do the right thing and get killed when you can just keep your mouth shut and live a little longer?" Malfoy countered sharply. "This is why I can't bring you with me. You'll stand out like a sore thumb."

"So then I'll wear a disguise and I won't say anything. I'm sure you've got some potion equipment somewhere in this old house. I'll have enough time to make a batch of polyjuice if we're going as late as you're suggesting." Hermione sat, confidently reciting her plan as if she were back at hogwarts with Ron and Harry, sneaking around the castle and trying not to get caught. After her first poor experience with polyjuice potion, she learned her lesson and spent a great deal of time studying up on the disguising potion. She was sure if Lucius had enough of the right ingredients, she could remember the recipe by heart. Worse comes to worse, it was bound to be in one of the books of his library. Or perhaps she could find Draco's old potions textbook lying around the manor somewhere.

Malfoy listened carefully before shooting her down. "That would work, except I doubt you keep random hairs handy. Who do you plan on turning into? Mimbi?" He chuckled but Hermione just shook her head.

"No, I don't need any hairs. You have them." She said happily. Malfoy looked confused. She couldn't turn into him, and then also go with him. Surely everyone would notice. Two Lucius Malfoys walk into a pub...no, it sounded like a bad joke. He narrowed his eyes and urged her to explain. "Well, your wife didn't take all of her hairbrushes with her when you all left, right?" Hermione raised an eyebrow and immediately Lucius knew what she was getting at.

"You're not turning into my wife."

Hermione scooted to the edge of her armchair and called over to him still over by the door. "But it's the only way it'll work. You said it yourself. No one will say anything, so it doesn't matter if anyone sees her with you."

"You're **not** turning into my wife. End of discussion." His face was getting red.

She knew before she even suggested it that Lucius wouldn't be happy about it, but it was the only thing that would make sense. "Who else would be better? She's your wife. You're married. It wouldn't seem odd at all for you to go to a pub with her. No one would suspect a thing. It's perfect!"

Malfoy shook his head and pushed himself off the door heavily. "I said no," he hissed and swung the door open, slamming it behind him as he left her room.

* * *

><p>"Mimbi..." Hermione called out. The little elf's name bounced off the walls, echoing down the large empty corridors of Malfoy Manor. "Mimbi..." She had waited a few minutes after Malfoy had left before leaving the room herself in search for the house elf. Hermione hurried down the halls, peaking into any open doorways, but they were all bare. "Mimbi..." Still no answer. If she was going to try to make polyjuice potion and get some of Narcissa's hairs, Hermione knew she couldn't do it alone. She kept walking and as she reached Lucius's library, noticing the door closed as usual, she tiptoed past it. He may not have even been in there, but she really couldn't risk the chance that he was. Darting down a few more corridors and swinging around several blind corners, Hermione ended up just outside the kitchens. Quietly reminding herself that she would need to map out the manor at some point if she ever planned on finding these places without taking all the wrong turns, Hermione pushed the kitchen doors open. "Mimbi?"<p>

She heard a shuffle of oversized elf feet before Mimbi called over to her. "Yes. Is cooking." It came from behind the large industrial sized oven and sure enough, after Hermione heard her voice, her poorly proportioned house elf's head popped up into view. "Need help?"

"Yes, actually." Hermione answered with a gentle smile. "I need to make a potion, Mimbi. Do you know where I can find a cauldron and maybe even some ingredients?"

"Ingredients?" The elf asked simply.

Hermione nodded. "Yeah, leeches, fluxseed, some boomslang skin. Do you know if there's anything like those around here?"

Mimbi thought for a moment before smiling and giving Hermione a happy nod. The little house-elf took the witch's hand and with a snap of her fingers, transported them to a large room with stone floors and walls. She wasn't sure if she was underground, but it didn't feel as cold as the dungeons at Hogwarts were. Mimbi pointed over at a massive wooden table with an averaged-sized cauldron sitting on top. Hermione examined it and determined it would be big enough for the amount of polyjuice she would need to last throughout the night. Glancing around the room quickly, she found the potions cabinet in the far right corner. It was more of a rack than a cabinet, having all sorts of different ingredients covering it's long shelves. The one ingredient Hermione was nervous about were the lacewing flies. From what she remembered, they were very specific. They needed to be stewed for 21 days, and she just didn't have that kind of time. She dug through the ingredients, pushing aside jars of fruit flies and horseflies before finally finding a small section of lacewing flies. There were four jars. The first one wasn't labeled, while the other three all had details of their contents written on the fronts. One specifically said that they were fresh, and Hermione knew that one wouldn't work for certain. The other two only listed off the amount in each jar, which didn't help her at all. She sighed and grabbed the unlabeled jar of lacewing flies. They looked like the stewed flies she had used when she'd made polyjucie potion in the past, but when it came down to it, they all looked absolutely disgusting after sitting in jars for however long they had. These ones seemed slightly wet though, which gave her hope. "This is absolutely terrific, Mimbi! Thank you!" Hermione thanked the house-elf as she waddled over to the table with her arms full of ingredients. "I just need one more thing from you and then I won't bother you again." The last thing she wanted to do was lie to the trusting elf. She had befriended her and Hermione knew she would feel horrible in the morning for taking advantage of that friendship, but it was the only way. "Malfoy's instructed me to help him make a surprise present for his wife, since she's been away from home for so long. She really misses her things, so we thought maybe we could use some of them in the surprise, to make her feel better." She could feel the self-hatred starting already with ever lie she spoke. "I really want to help him make this for her, but I don't know where any of her things are. Could you help me by getting one of her old hairbrushes for me? It'll really make the surprise absolutely stunning!"

Mimbi paused and Hermione could tell she was trying to figure out what to do. She hoped that the elf wouldn't start beating herself if she went along with Hermione's request, but after another moment of hesitation, Mimbi snapped her fingers and vanished. Hermione let out the deep breath she was holding in and began working on the potion, waiting for Mimbi's return.

* * *

><p>"Finally...just one more..." Hermione was bent over the bubbling cauldron, stirring away as she tried to control the steady boil and reduce it down to an even simmer before it burnt to the bottom. She glanced down at the ivory-handled hairbrush sitting next to her workspace and smiled. It was almost complete. All she needed to do was bottle enough for the night into a flask and keep the hairs from the brush in her pocket. Then it would be perfect.<p>

* * *

><p>"I told you you don't need to knock." Lucius called through the library door as Hermione wrapped her knuckles on it's surface from outside. She opened it and saw him sitting down at his desk with a short stack of parchment. As she entered the room, he folded them and tucked them away in one of the drawers. "It's late. I thought you'd be sleeping by now, not reading."<p>

Hermione had changed into one of the new robes in her dresser. This one was all black with a large, oversized hood. She flipped it up over her head and pulled it around the sides of her face until she was almost entirely hidden by the heavy fabric. "Look. See? We can still go to the pub, and no one will see me. I'll keep the hood up and won't say anything to anyone."

"You're ridiculous," Lucius chuckled, shaking his head.

"No, really." Hermione insisted, pulling the hood further down over her forehead so it just capped over her eyes. All he could make out clearly was her sweet smile poking out from beneath the wide hood. "See? You can't even recognize me. It'll work. We'll pick a table in the back or something, and no one will be the wiser. They'll just see you and someone wearing a really big hood." Hermione giggled herself after hearing the way it sounded. It did sound crazy, but if she could convince him it would work, then that's all she needed. "Just give it a try. If you feel like someone can see me too well, we can leave. There's no protective charms in the pub that make it impossible to apparate while still inside, right?" Lucius thought for a second before shaking his head. "Well, then that's even better. If things get hairy, we can just leave."

Lucius stared at her for another few seconds, watching the way her smile grew the more she tried to convince him. His eyes rolled up her face, stopping as it hit the hood, and tried to see underneath it from the distance he was at. He couldn't. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he agreed, adding, "But if anything goes wrong, I'm blaming you entirely."

"Deal!" Hermione exclaimed and flipped the hood back down away from her face.

* * *

><p>Lucius and Hermione apparated just across the street from the pub, hidden away in one of the narrow alleyways between the tall brick buildings. It was just past eleven o'clock and like Lucius had said earlier, the place was popping. Even the street was filled with a handful of sketchy witches and wizards roaming around. Hermione took a deep breath and stepped towards the street but Malfoy pushed an arm across her chest, stopping her before she left the alleyway. "You're hood!" He shook his head and cursed under his breath. "We haven't even stepped foot in the pub yet and you're already going to give us away. I know you're nervous but you need to stay focused." He shook his head again and mumbled more to himself than to her, "This is completely ridiculous..."<p>

Hermione pulled the hood tighter over his head. "I'll be fine. The hood will stay on all night and no one will even notice me. You'll probably get more looks than I will, what with your reputation."

"Reputation?" Lucius asked, not sure if he should have been offended or just confused.

Hermione shrugged innocently. "Well, this is your type of area, isn't it? I'm sure the people here will know all about you and your rehabilitation." Hermione paused as a thought came to her. "Wait...are you even allowed to be here? Wouldn't that violate some part of your probation, being around people and businesses like..." She let her words fade away as she glanced around at the shops nearby. Pointing at a pair of shrunken heads that were dangling disgustingly in a shop window, Hermione finished, "...like that."

Lucius sighed, followed by a low groan as he pushed his way out of the small side street, walking briskly towards the pub. "Let's just get this over with before I change my mind." Hermione inhaled another deep breath of the odd air that seemed to linger all throughout Knockturn Alley and followed after him. He was a few paces ahead of her and Hermione slowed her steps, giving them more of a distance. When she finally worked up the nerve, her hand slipped into her cloak pocket and pulled out the flask of polyjuice potion she had been concealing. With the hairs collected from Naricissa's brush from her other pocket, she dropped them in and took a quick swig of the foul tasting potion. She felt like she was going to throw up right there in the street, but as she watched Lucius still walking ahead of her, she knew she needed to stay quiet. If he heard her transfiguring before they entered the pub, he would never go in. He would turn them right around, take her back to the manor, and probably much worse before the night was over. But she couldn't give up on her wand, even if it meant risking him exploding at her once they were alone.

With another gulp of the horrid liquid, Hermione felt her face tighten and stretch as Narcissa's high cheekbones and prominently feminine brows began to form. She felt her chin somehow snap in on itself before projecting outward, further than Hermione's own natural bone structure and she wanted to cry out, groan, make some sort of noise just to get it out of her system, but she clasped her hands over her mouth quickly and buried any sounds deep in her throat. Lucius had reached the pub's door and was waiting for her. Hermione ducked her head down further, yanking the oversized hood over her head and tugged it around her new face as best as she could. Her heart was racing as she realized it was now or never. The final changes in her features were just finishing and if he spotted her now, as she was reaching the pub door, he would go ballistic. She kept her head down as Lucius held the door open for her. Walking in first, Hermione felt him following closely behind her and listened as the door slammed shut a second later. She couldn't get her heart to stop throbbing in her chest. After spending so much time in the public eye whilst on outings with Lucius, she had learned to control most of her nerves but this was different. These people were..._strange_. It's likely that nearly all of them had some sort of connection with the Dark Lord, and if they said they didn't, they were probably liars as well.

Hermione glanced over at the bar on the left side of the room, only a few meters from the door. The first few seat were filled by a rowdy group of scruffy-looking wizards with drunken grins on their faces. She circled around them, giving them as much space as she could without bumping into the nearby tables, and eyed the empty stools at the far end of the bar. Lucius had spotted them too and quickened his strides until he had caught up with and passed Hermione casually. _'Now...do it now! He won't have any time to react if he isn't the first one to see you. He'll have no choice if he's the last to know,'_ Hermione's voice yelled at her in her own head, urging her to pull the hood down when Lucius's back was to her. Lucius rounded the corner of the bar, calling to the bartender as he walked towards the stools they wanted. Quickly, without any further hesitation, Hermione flicked the hood down and shook her long silver hair free from the thick fabric. She could feel her face reddening, knowing there were at least a few more eyes on her now, but she kept walking, following Lucius to their stools. He hadn't looked at her. He was still too concerned with the bartender. The man behind the bar answered him with what Hermione was sure was the most welcoming greeting she would find in Knockturn Alley. "Mr. Malfoy. Mrs. Malfoy. What'll you drink?" He tilted his head towards each of them as he said their names, his tone flat and sullen as he reached for two glasses from under the counter.

Lucius's head whipped around, catching what the barkeep had called Hermione quicker than she thought he would. His face dropped when he saw her. The pale, smooth skin, cold familiar eyes, and trademark Malfoy blonde hair; his wife had followed him into the bar, not Hermione Granger. She could see the muscles of his jaw tighten and clench as he stared at her from across the bar. Slowly, she made her way over to him, sitting down gently on the stool next to his. "I'll have a vodka on the rocks. Toss in a cherry if you've got one." Hermione ordered, trying to mimic the superior attitude she was sure Narcissa must have. It was hard to pretend when she never really met the woman. Hermione had seen her maybe once or twice, but she'd never had a real conversation with Mrs. Malfoy. She always interacted with the husband or the son, but never the quiet, hidden wife. She had always been out of the picture, tucked safely away from all the fighting and especially from the Dark Lord.

The bartender nodded and fixed Hermione's drink before turning to Lucius. "And you?" Lucius didn't answer. He was still glaring at Hermione—now Narcissa. "Hey, I'm not waiting around all night. Either you want a drink or you can hit the curb."

Hermione smiled with Narcissa's thin red lips and placed a hand gently over Lucius's wrist, laughing off her husband's suddenly mute state. "He'll have the same, minus the cherry, extra vodka." Lucius pulled his arm away from her and dropped his eyes down to the counter in front of them. He was fixed on it, refusing to look at the woman next to him. The bartender quickly produced Lucius's drink.

"Leave us." Lucius ordered, tossing a golden coin at the bartender a little rougher than was needed. The barman took it and began walking away, grumbling under his breath at Lucius's rudeness. Hermione lifted the cherry from her drink and bobbed it up and down in the clear alcohol, bumping into an ice cube here and there. "I should have known you wouldn't listen to me." Lucius hissed.

"This was the best option." Hermione began softly.

"No, it wasn't. The best option was for you to stay the hell back and let me go alone." His voice rose slightly before he reigned it back in, not wanting to gather any more attitude than he was sure they already had, but his face was still wild with growing resentment for her. He shook his head in disgust, partially at her and the rest at himself for believing her.

Hermione sipped at her drink. "Listen, it's nothing personal but—,"

"It's nothing **but** personal!" He corrected her, again, louder than was wise, and lowered his voice quickly. "I specifically told you this was off limits and now look at you. Parading around..." He shifted his eyes over her once more time before looking away with a groan. "If you think this is even remotely acceptable, then you're dumber than I thought." His words hissed out sharply, meant to sting her well enough to last.

She frowned and stared down at the cherry still floating in her drink. "Despite what you might think, I didn't do this to offend you. It was the only way I could safely be here. I'm sure you know that."

"Don't you dare assume to know what I think. If you had just listened to me when I told you to stay at the manor, none of this would have happened." Lucius was fuming, his face turning red and it wasn't from the vodka, not yet anyway.

"None of what?" Hermione asked. "Nothing has happened. I'm safe. You're safe. No one cares that we're here, having a drink together. It doesn't matter."

"It **does** matter," he shot back, finally making eye contact for longer than a second before breaking away. He stared at his wife's eyes for as long as he could before shaking his head away with a disapproving groan. "Just drink your bloody drink and shut the hell up. I don't feel like listening to you tonight." Malfoy said harshly before throwing back his own vodka and slamming the glass down onto the counter. "Get me another." He whistled at the bartender, a gesture that earned him a less than amused glare but eventually, his glass was refilled for the first of many times that night.

* * *

><p>The few conversations Hermione tried to start had immediately been shot down and as Malfoy became more and more intoxicated throughout the night, his replies grew harsher, before he finally took another gulp of his drink and pulled himself closer to her. He leaned in towards her and mumbled, "I don't want to hear you. I don't want to look at you. I just want to sit here, drink this vodka, and forget you even exist." He dropped his voice, though it had only been barely above a whisper in the first place, and added, "Stupid mudblood..." before splashing some more vodka down his throat.<p>

Hermione sat quietly next to him. He had insulted her on more than one occasion as the night grew longer but that one took the cake. She breathed in heavily through her nostrils and crossed her arms over her chest, reminding herself that he was drunk, he was upset, and most of all, they were in public. No matter what he said, it didn't matter. She would let it roll off her back because she wasn't there for him. She was there to get her wand back and if he wanted to sit there and berate her the entire night, he would do it without getting any response from her.

The pub was beginning to clear out and Hermione's hopes were dying quickly. The man with her wand wasn't coming. The bartender walked over and leaned his elbows against the counter to talk with Narcissa. "I would have thought he'd handle his liquor better with you here, but I guess not." He raised an eyebrow and motioned towards Lucius, who had his head down on the bar, his hand wrapped loosely around his half-filled glass.

"I can hear you, you little shit..." he groaned. Hermione couldn't tell if it was the alcohol that had made him this angry or if it was still her. Every time Lucius glanced over at her and saw her using Narcissa's image, he had to look away. He couldn't look at Hermione without all the rage coming back in an instant.

"I'm sorry," Hermione whispered to the bartender. "He doesn't mean that."

"Yes I do. Don't you dare speak for me." Lucius lifted his head and finished the rest of his drink, nudging it towards the bartender to refill.

Hermione smiled in embarrassment at the bartender, who rolled his eyes and filled Lucius's glass one more time. "Last call, buddy. Finish up and hit the road."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going." Lucius humored him, chugging down the vodka before slamming the glass onto the counter top. Hermione took one more sip from her drink and pushed it forward gently, thanking the bartender as they stood from their stools. Lucius dug into his inner cloak pocket and withdrew a handful of golden wizard coins, throwing them down roughly on the bar as they walked out.

Hermione rolled her eyes as they stepped into the street. "He should have cut you off hours ago. You didn't have to be so rude to him. He didn't do anything to you."

She watched as he searched his robes clumsily. At last, he withdrew the familiar small vial of sobriety potion and took it. He stopped wobbling and raised an eyebrow, sarcastically waving his hands over himself for Hermione to view. "Happy, now?"

"Not entirely, but it's a start..." Hermione mumbled. "Let's go. It's late and this place gives me the creeps."

Lucius smirked and teased. "I should leave you here. Let that potion wear off and then we'll see how long you'll last out here alone." He glanced around at the dark, empty streets and added eerily, "You never know who's out at this time of night. No idea who you might run into."

Hermione wasn't going to let him get to her. She ignored his taunts and offered him her hand. "The sun will be coming up soon. I'm getting tired and I'm sure you are too. Let's go." Lucius glared at her for another second before dropping his eyes to her hand instead. He still had trouble looking at her when she was using Narcissa's face. It irked him. He thrust his hand into herself and apparated them back to the manor.

They landed right outside the library. Hermione felt slightly nauseous, not having taken any of the sobriety potion. The mixture of her few glasses of vodka, combined with the motions of apparation didn't sit well with her head or stomach. Lucius opened the door to the library and Hermione asked, "Any questions for tonight?"

"No." He replied sternly, stepping into the library alone. "Go to bed and don't bother me. I've had enough of you for one night." He closed the door behind him and Hermione heard a very distinct 'click' as it locked. For another moment or two, she stood, staring at the door of the library. She had her answer...it wasn't the alcohol that made him so mad after all. It was just her.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Oh no! More conflict! Feel free to give your thoughts in the reviews. Next chapter won't be posted until the end of June due to me being busy with something for the next few weeks. As soon as I get the chance, I'll start writing it out. :) Already have it planned so I can't wait to get it posted! Don't forget to review after you read. :)<strong>_

_**xoxo WildbubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	16. Chapter 16

_**Author's Notes: A month later than expected...I had this finished but wasn't sure if I wanted to end it where I did or not, so to prevent you guys from having to wait any longer, here it is. I know it seems like Lucius is always drinking in nearly every chapter but I swear...Lucius won't remain drunk for the rest of this fanfic haha, I promise! Anyway, as always, review and let me know what you think...feel free to scold me for making you all wait so long for such a teasing chapter. I really can't apologize enough but hopefully there are still a couple of readers interested in seeing where this fanfic goes. But enough chitchat...ENJOY!**_

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><p>Chapter 16<p>

"What a jerk…" Hermione murmured as she stood outside the library door. She knew she had crossed a line by transforming herself into his wife, but she had explained her reasons clearly enough. It made perfect sense, and yet he was still fixed on hating her for it. As she made her way back into her room, passing the bed and small sitting area to head straight for the bathroom, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. The platinum blonde hair and strikingly hard features were still in full force and she frowned at the image. _'It's not as if I did it for fun…who would want to be this pale?'_ Hermione thought to herself as she pinched her right cheek. It even felt tighter than her own face. _'How in the world does she even smile?'_ Again Hermione thought silently before trying to recall a time she had actually seen Narcissa Malfoy smile. It really wasn't a fair assessment of the woman. Hermione never actually met her and only saw her a few times during the war. No one was smiling then.

She turned away from the mirror and walked back over to the main room. She was just about to get ready for bed when her eyes caught sight of something on the tiny table in the seating area. The necklace from Lucius. Marching over to pick up the offending object, Hermione stopped and examined it closer. It was beautiful, but unwanted. Where would she even wear it? It didn't fit her sense of style at all. _'But how do I get rid of it? I can't just chuck it in some random room.'_ As the thought came to her, she reevaluated it. _'Well, I suppose I could. There are so many rooms in this place, I doubt he'd ever come across it again.'_ Hermione set it back on the table and stared down at it. _'If he didn't want it, he could have just thrown it away himself…'_ She regretted him leaving the necklace in her room. He should have taken it away with him, thrown it out himself. He should have known she wouldn't agree to give it to Ginny, and certainly wouldn't take it for herself. She forced out a heavy breath and glared at the jewelry. _'Damn it, Hermione. Stop it! You're an angel and everyone knows it, but this isn't the time to feel guilty or polite. Just throw the bloody thing away in some rubbish bin and leave it at that!'_ The witch reached down and snatched it off the table, determined to finally listen to her inner voice and throw it out of her room. Even if she only tossed it into the hallway, what would it matter? So Malfoy would feel offended; big deal! He had offended her so many times this evening and all for what? Because she happened to have a brilliant idea of how to be seen in public, in a death-eater-ridden pub, without looking suspicious? Then so be it; they would be even. Hermione paced quickly over to the bedroom door and opened it, tossing Malfoy's necklace off into the darkened corridor, before closing the door on it.

_'There, it's done and now I can get some rest!'_ She walked over to her bed and sat down on the edge uncomfortably. She was still in Narcissa's form. It felt odd enough just being her for the night; the last thing Hermione wanted was to undress as her. It wouldn't be right, not to mention most likely repulsive. If she were to ever see Narcissa again, it would be absolutely impossible to look her in the eye if she saw how she looked without any clothes, or in night clothes. Hermione pushed out another burst of air through her nostrils. _'I'll just stay awake until the polyjuice potion wears off. Then I can get changed and go to sleep.'_

As she sat on the bed, her mind began to wander back to the events of the night. She wondered how many nights they would have to spend in that grimy old pub before they would spot the wizard they were looking for. What if he never came back into that pub? What if he decided to move to an entirely different country and they had lost him forever? She would have to look into getting herself a new wand. But Ollivander was dead and he was the best wand maker she knew of. What if she got stuck with some useless wand that didn't understand her at all and made her magic appear weaker than she knew it to be with her original wand? Her head was spinning with so much doubt and fret that she almost didn't expect it when the next thought popped into her brain. _'You know, he only insulted you like that tonight because you pissed him off. You really crossed a line tonight, Hermione.'_ She bit down on her back teeth and tried to push the thought out of her head. She did what she had to do. If he got hurt in the process, then too bad. _'That didn't sound at all like something a Gryffindor would say…to sacrifice someone's feelings and to lie, but to then go even further by justifying it with a childish _'he started it'_? No…that doesn't sound like you at all…'_ Hermione lifted herself up off the bed in a huff and walked back into the bathroom. So what if it doesn't sound like something she'd do? She had to do something, didn't she? She couldn't just let him go to the pub by himself and leave her wondering whether or not he had gotten her wand back. She ran cold water from the sink and splashed a bit on her face—no, on Narcissa's face. She glanced up at her boney white features in the mirror, tiny water droplets hanging at the end of her nose, and struck out at the reflection. For a moment, she thought she may have hit it hard enough to crack it or shatter the mirror completely, but it must have been reinforced because all that was left was the wet outline of her knuckles right where her face still was, staring back at her. _'Now, now, Hermione…don't lose your head over this. So what if you're not acting like yourself? So what if you're not the type to lie and hurt people? We'll leave that to the Slytherins and let tonight's wrongs be our own little secret…'_ She couldn't shut her mind off. The guilt was building up inside of her and no matter what else she tried to think of, she kept coming back to what she had done. "Fine!" Hermione verbally exhaled, taking one last look at herself in the mirror, and hurried out of her room, into the darkened hallway.

It was a poorly placed plan, since there honestly wasn't a plan at all. In a matter of minutes, she found herself standing right back outside the library door. As she tried the knob, to no surprise, it was still locked. With an almost relieved sigh, she turned back to the way she came and let the guilt slowly slip away from her. _'There…I tried to apologize, but the door is locked. It's the thought that counts after all…now I can go to…'_ She began walking back to her room, when she heard a soft click behind her, but when she turned around, nothing had moved. Everything was still in place, the corridor was still empty aside from her own self, and no one was there. Her eyes ran over the hallway, hovering over each of the doors for a second or two, before moving on to the next, until finally they landed on the library's door knob. It looked the same from a distance and the angle she was looking from, but as she stepped closer, she realized that the door had actually opened slightly. It wasn't enough to get a body out of, but it was unlocked and even pushed open just a hair. Hermione let out another sigh, this time with a slight air of frustration, before pushing the door open a little bit wider. The lights in the library were all on and there were still a few books scattered on the coffee table, but the room looked to be the same as it always was. Except of course, for Malfoy slumped over his desk. At first, she couldn't tell if he was awake or not, but when she saw him glance upwards at her as she entered the room, she knew she wasn't that lucky.

He groaned. "You're still her, are you?" Lucius had dropped his head back down to his desk, as if it weighed a hundred pounds, and kept his eyes off of her.

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah, well the potion hasn't worn off yet. There's nothing I can do about that." She walked over to the desk and stopped a few inches away from it. "I just wanted to say I'm…" Letting her words trail off into silence when she caught sight of what he was doing. He wasn't leaning over his desk because he was tired. There were three empty bottles lying on the floor next to his desk chair and a piece of parchment under his face. He must have been reading it, or trying to, when she walked in, but eventually gave up and decided it would be better suited as a pillow. His cheek pressed against the inky paper as his heavy eyes stayed closed. She began to wonder if he had passed out. Merlin only knows how he managed to down whatever was in those three bottles so quickly. They had only just arrived back to Malfoy Manor not more than an hour or so ago.

"You came to what? Spit it out. I'm in no mood for guessing games." He mumbled against the desk, not bothering to lift his head off the parchment.

He was a mess. Surely he didn't become this way all because of their evening at the pub. She knew he missed his wife, but this mess before her couldn't possibly be a result of seeing her image again, could it? Hermione leaned forward and tried to get a better look at him. He didn't appear to be sick, or injured. She hadn't hurt his feeling that much; heck, as far as he was concerned, he had no feelings; none worth speaking of at least. Her eyes trailed down the parchment he was lying his head on and she spotted his name in the top left-hand corner, written neatly and elegantly in what she could only guess to be a woman's delicate handwriting. "What is that?" She started squinting at it, but his head and hair was getting in the way.

To her surprise, he lazily lifted himself up off the desk's surface and shoved the parchment towards her roughly. "Go on and read it since you're so bloody nosy." His tone was sharp but she could tell it wasn't directed entirely at her. He leaned off to the side in his chair and reached down into one of the desk drawers, producing another identical bottle to the three still lying on the floor beside him. "It doesn't matter…nothing matters." He was mumbling under his breath as he wrestled with the bottle's top, tearing it open and sparing a glass as he began to nurse from it.

Hermione watched him warily before picking up the paper. It looked all wrinkled, as if someone had crumpled it up a few times but flattened it out after each time, before balling it up again. She read it quietly to herself.

_**My dearest Lucius,**_

_** We are well. We have taken up shelter in a relative's home for the time being. Draco has spoken of starting anew, in a different**_

_**country where no one will know our names or more importantly— yours, but a place like that is hard to find. I do hope you **_

_**know we are grateful for the life you have provided for us up until this point, even if Draco still struggles to forgive your **_

_**decision to leave us, but I had hoped my refusal of your owls would be enough of a sign for you to understand. I suppose I was **_

_**wrong in that respect, and so I have the unfortunate task of writing you this letter. It is not my intent to purposely harm you, **_

_**but I fear I may do so for the sake of being as clear as absolutely necessary. This is the last owl you will receive from me. I will **_

_**not be accepting any of your owls, as I have not accepted any of your previous ones for some time now. Soon, we will be **_

_**moving on to a more permanent location. I must insist that you do not attempt to find us. It will only cause more pain than **_

_**good. I know deep down, you must have known just as well as I have, that the time for this has been long since overdue. Only **_

_**now has it been thrust into the forefront by our recent differences and our inevitable separation. I wish you well in your **_

_**journey through the ministry's hoops, but I cannot risk our son's life by supporting you in that journey. Be safe.**_

_**Narcissa**_

Hermione read the last words over in her head, _'Be safe,'_ before slowly lowering the letter back down onto the desk. She couldn't think of what to say. There was nothing to say, except that she was sorry, but that was what she had already planned on doing when she entered the library tonight. However, now, she was sorry for another reason, she just couldn't sort out how to go about saying it, so she said nothing.

As Hermione placed the letter down in front of him, Lucius reached out and pulled it back to him, crumpling it up in his hand as he did so. He pulled it all the way across the desk before letting it teeter over the edge beside him and fall to the library's floor. He looked disgusted, by the letter, by the way Hermione looked with Narcissa's silver hair and her cold eyes, and most likely also by the harsh taste of the alcohol he began to pour down his throat. "Lovely, isn't it?" He asked sarcastically with a chuckle and Hermione knew he didn't expect an answer. "I gave them everything—my home, my life, my family's wealth, and for what?" Lucius huffed out an annoyed burst of mock laughter and motioned down at the wrinkled letter now on the floor. "For that. A piece of rubbish owl telling me how unnecessary I truly am to them." He took another long swig from the bottle in his hand and added roughly, "An annoyance, I am. After everything I've done…"

It was uncomfortable, standing by the desk with nothing to say or do except stare down at the freshly disheveled wizard. She took a step backwards and leaned against the back of the sofa, not wanting to walk so far away as to seem disinterested in his issues, but not wanting to stand quite so close and risk the awkwardness of the situation rising any further than it already was. As he downed another gulp of the bottled liquid, Hermione forced out a meek, "I'm sorry."

Lucius laughed loudly, startling Hermione with the sudden outburst. "You're sorry! That's brilliant. She's the one rejecting everything I've ever done for her, and there you stand, looking like _that_, apologizing." He thrust a finger towards her as he spoke and waggled it up and down sloppily, adding, "That's rich. That's bloody rich."

"Listen, if you want me to leave, I wi—," Hermione began as she crossed her arms over her chest, wishing the polyjuice potion would finally wear off so he might not be so hostile with her.

"No, stay." Lucius interrupted, finally pulling himself together enough to lift his head up off the desk and stare down his nose at her. "Stay my dear, and hear what I have to say for one last time." He threw back another mouthful of liquid courage before abandoning the bottle onto the floor with the others, despite it still being half-full and pouring out onto the library floor. He pushed himself up out of the chair, his hands on the desk for balance, and thrust a finger back out at her. "I think you owe me that much."

Hermione frowned at his tone, his finger-pointing, and his overall stench of hard liquor. "I'm not your wife, Malfoy. If you have something to say to her, take it up with her, not me."

He took a hesitant step to the side of the desk, careful to keep his footing underneath him, and stopped just as he made his way around the front of the desk. "I can't! Haven't you been listening? She won't accept my owls. She won't accept anything from me anymore!" He was leaning his face in closer to her as his voice rose in frustration. Pulling back and steadying himself against the edge of the desk, Malfoy closed his eyes and mumbled, "I've lost her, after everything, I've finally lost her." He shook his head slightly, his eyes still closed and his head tilted back a little. "Isn't it ironic? All these years, serving the Dark Lord and doing his bidding, she's stuck by me, through it all, and now that I'm finally done with it, down with everything, she's gone. They're both gone and I have nothing left but that bloody fucking letter!" He shouted out the last few words, jabbing his finger then in the general direction where the letter had landed on the floor.

She'd talked Harry down from a lot of things in the past. She and Ron had brought Harry back to his senses after Sirius had been killed, and again after every time Voldemort would get into his head and flipped things upside down. But she had never talked anyone down from something like this. Harry had helped her when Ron chose Lavender over her, but that was different. Everything turned out alright and Ron ended up realizing what a mistake he had made. It wasn't like this. Hermione cautiously offered, "Maybe they'll change their minds and realize they've made a mistake."

"You really haven't been hearing me at all." Lucius tried to focus on her but his eyes wouldn't stop bouncing around under his heavy eyelids and he gave up, looking down at the space between them instead. "_'Long since overdue'_ she said. Well where the bloody hell was I when this revelation was being made? It was news to me!" He rubbed the palm of his right hand against his forehead and dragged his fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face. "I knew we had our issues, what with Voldemort and Potter and all, but to say it was a long time coming is ridiculous!" He shook his head angrily as he thought back of when his wife and son were still living with him in Malfoy Manor. It was a strained relationship of course due to the stresses of war, but he couldn't see where it had gone wrong exactly.

Hermione shrugged gently. "She must have seen it differently. Sometimes what one person thinks is a loving, caring relationship, another can see as neglectful or a distant one. I'm sure you were gone a lot during the war. I know Harry, Ron, and I were away from our friends and family for months. It was really hard and I—,"

"Wait just a minute…neglectful? I resent that! I did all I could to be there, even when I wasn't. I did absolutely everything I could think of and if that wasn't enough then nothing would have been good enough!" Lucius grazed his hand over his hair again—an agitated motion Hermione was beginning to notice. "Neglectful…" he mumbled to himself before continuing louder for Hermione to hear, "Flowers, jewelry, chocolates, I did everything I could think of! I left little notes scattered all around the house for you to find while I was away." Hermione noticed the way his eyes seemed to stare off, past her, as he was no longer speaking to her in particular. It may have been the alcohol confusing his words or perhaps he really did think his wife was in the room with him instead of Hermione, the polyjuice potion not helping one bit, but Hermione stood her ground with her arms crossed over her chest and a cautious eye on him. "When I was gone for two weeks straight, I had flowers sent daily, enough so that when I returned, they filled your whole wing of the manor. There wasn't a single room without at least four or five bouquets or vases." He insisted and grumbled out again, "Neglectful…"

She could sense he was no longer with her, in the library, but instead lost in some confusing mixture of drunken memories and perhaps even a hallucinated conversation with his wife. Hermione took in a deep breath and shook her head. "Then you did all you could, and the connection just wasn't there anymore. People change sometimes. There's nothing you can do about that. Your wife must have felt that change in the relationship and—,"

"Change? I haven't changed at all. I've been the same since the day we met. Even back then, I went out of my way to try to make you happy." Lucius glanced over her face and Hermione could tell he was trying to keep the fact that Hermione looked identical to his wife out of his mind. It was confusing him, mixed with the alcohol. "To make her happy," he corrected softly. "I need a fucking drink…"

He started to turn back towards the desk, to go search for the bottle he had discarded along with the others, but Hermione stopped him. "You've already had a drink. Probably many drinks. Where's your sobriety potion? I know this is probably a really hard thing to deal with, but it'll be a lot easier with a clear head."

"I didn't bother brewing any," he mumbled. "I knew I wouldn't want it." He chuckled heavily and shifted his eyes away from her again. "Trust me, the last thing I want right now is a clear head."

Hermione rolled her eyes with a groan. "You're going to regret that in the morning. You'll be sick as a dog." She could have sworn she heard him grumble 'Good' but his words had slurred slightly and she couldn't make it out exactly. She stared at him, watching the way his eyes reflected off the light of the room, glazed over, and she couldn't help but think he looked like a kicked dog. Not a cute little puppy abandoned on the side of the road, but a mangy old dog with ticks and fleas, muddy paws, and knotted up fur. It was the dog no one really wanted, but had to take it in just to keep it out of the cold until springtime. But still, it made her feel bad for him. He had just lost the last fragments of his marriage and what was even worse was that he had to hear it from a letter; that had to be tough. "Then at least sit down and we can talk about it." She motioned towards the sofa behind her and watched as Lucius shifted his sight over to the seating area in the center of the room.

She didn't wait for him to respond. Hermione rounded the sofa and sat down in her usual seat. Lucius scoffed at her as he followed. "Talk? What is there to talk about? I have nothing left. My wife has left me. My son refuses to talk to me. It's become more than obvious that they want nothing to do with me. What else is there to say?" He sat down on the opposite side of the sofa, most likely relieved that he didn't have to keep himself balanced on his feet a second longer.

"Well," Hermione began, trying to think of what she could even say in the current situation. He was right. There really wasn't anything else to discuss except that his life had turned from pretty shitty to absolutely shitty in the matter of a day, and really, what kind of conversation starter would that be? "I'm sure Draco will come around eventually. He used to talk about you all the time back in Hogwarts."

"You're a terrible liar." Lucius mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

Hermione shook her head. "No, really. I mean, it was usually just to tell people that you would hear about whatever was going on at the time, but he was always mentioning you. And I'm sure once he comes back, Narcissa will too."

Lucius must have been ignoring her words of encouragement because he replied by recalling memories of their past together. "She was beautiful, when I met her." His eyes scanned over Hermione, seeing only Narcissa's face in front of him, and he examined every inch of it as if he hasn't seen it in years. "She still is. Always priding herself on her looks…good bone structure, I used to tease her, saying it was all in the genes." He let out a soft sigh with a gentle smile and let his eyes drop away from her. "There were others who dreamed of courting her, but she chose me." Lucius shook his head roughly and rubbed his fingertips against one of his temples. "No idea why. She scared the life out of me. So confident and intelligent, gorgeous, _**and**_pureblood. I was terrified that I wouldn't be good enough for her." Hermione sat quietly and listened, though every time Lucius glanced over at her, she knew he wasn't looking at her for any reason other than to get one last look at his wife. He chuckled as he remembered bits of their past together. "Her father hated me for the longest time, right up until our wedding day I suppose. He said I had a funny manner about me." He laughed again. "Her mother adored me though. I always assumed that's the only reason her father allowed me to marry her at all." He paused and added, "There were more purebloods back then. She had plenty to choose from besides me. She wasn't forced into it like some witches and wizards are now-a-days." He was talking to Hermione then.

"Were there others for you then as well? Other girls you courted and took out on dates?"

"Of course," Malfoy nodded. "It was expected of me just as it was expected of them to accept my offers." He shrugged casually. "It was a different time, a better time." He grew silent for a moment before looking back over at Hermione. "If I knew where she was, I would go back. I would leave all of this…again, and tell the ministry to take their rehabilitation program and sod off. But I don't know where they are." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the tops of his knees, and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. "I don't know where the hell they are, which means I can't keep them safe."

Hermione watched as he painfully pushed his head down against his hands in frustration and a bit of anger. "The letter said they're staying at a relative's home. Why don't you just check them out and narrow it down until you find which one they're with?"

"She lied." Lucius replied flatly. "Her side of the family is almost as extinct as mine is, especially after the war. If she were really at a relative's home, I would know." He let out a sigh and lifted his head off of his palms, sitting back against the sofa stiffly. "She can't put where she is in an owl. If the ministry intercepts it, they'll find them and get to Draco. She'd never risk that."

Lucius shifted his eyes back to her, floating around from her eyes to her mouth and her chin, the way her eyebrows arched at just the right spot on her face, everything. He took it all in and Hermione wished the polyjuice potion would finally wear off. It would make him miss her less if he didn't have to look at her just to talk to Hermione. "Where were you when you decided to return to the manor? Where did you and your family go after the war?"

He shrugged indifferently. "Anywhere, everywhere. We took turns, choosing where we would go to next. Draco had us go to Sweden. He said he had heard that the scenery was breathtaking and wanted to see it for himself. One of his housemates had went there on holiday one year and bragged about the ski slopes. He said it was supposed to be like flying on a broom, only on snow. So we went there first, stayed for a while, and then Narcissa wanted to go to Italy. We packed up and move on to Italy. We stayed there the majority of the time after the war, in an old country house in a rural area of the north. It was massive, though still small in comparison to the manor, but it was big enough to keep her content." He smiled weakly and remarked, "She could never stand small homes. I remember how she used to joke some times, claiming she only married me for my manor." He let out a short laugh but Hermione found it hard to believe the aristocratic couple joked and teased at all together. In public, they always seemed so serious, so cold, but why would he lie?

"Then where did you go?" Hermione asked.

"We stayed in that old country house for a long time. I didn't want to make her leave since that was where she had wanted us to go, but as time passed, I wanted to come back here. This is my home and I couldn't stand having abandoned it to rot away. I waited until we got word about the ministry's rehabilitation program. That was when I announced that I wanted to return, so Draco and I could be integrated back into wizarding society as free men, and Narcissa could live without the fear of having her family locked away in Azkaban." He was growing tired of talking and lazily waved his hand around in a circle, dismissing the rest of his tale. "And you know how that turned out obviously."

Hermione nodded. "Draco refused and your wife took his side. How do you know they didn't stay in that country house in Italy? They could still be there."

"No," Lucius shook his head. "Narcissa went into town one morning and could have sworn someone recognized Draco with her. I told her that she was imagining it, that we were too far away from all of this for anyone to know who we were, but she was convinced. Even Draco said the man was staring at him and it made him uneasy. We began packing and that was when I found out about the ministry and made my decision."

"Just like that?" Hermione questioned doubtfully. "You heard about the ministry accepting some of the death eaters back into society and you just automatically decided that was for you?"

Lucius shrugged lazily. "Well, not just me. I had planned on all of us going back. Draco could finish his schooling and go on to start a career, a family, children," He waved his hand loosely through the air, having had his son's future planned out since before Draco was even born. "Comfortable home," he gazed around the room and Hermione somehow got the impression that he wasn't talking about his son anymore. "And a respectable position within the ministry. Beautiful wife," Lucius let his eyes trail around the room before landing on Hermione. Her cheeks reddened, or at least they felt like they did. She couldn't say for certain whether Narcissa's pale cheeks could actually blush, they were so white. But Hermione was certain that it felt like she was blushing with the way Lucius was staring straight at her. She wanted to say something, anything to remind him where he was and who he was really with, but most of all she just wanted the damned polyjuice potion to wear off so it would be less awkward sitting so close to him. And she _would_ have said something, but the feeling in her cheeks began to radiate through her face and traveled down her neck, spreading throughout her entire body. Hermione had just started to glance down at her hands, to see if she was in fact turning back into herself, when she felt Lucius's hand softly cup the side of her face, followed quickly by his lips on her own. They were surprisingly smooth, considering the roughness of his stubble that surrounded them, but it was an even exchange. The sensations balanced out perfectly and for a second longer, Hermione didn't react. It wasn't something she was ready for but looking back, she scolded herself internally for not expecting it. He lifted his chin in an attempt to deepen the kiss and bring them closer, and it worked. Her lips just barely broke apart, permitting him entrance, when she realized what she was doing and who she was doing it with. His other hand reached up to caress the curve of her cheek, but she slapped it away, pulling herself away from him entirely.

She stood from the sofa, exploding onto her feet just as Lucius opened his eyes, most likely not accustomed to that type of reaction. He was about to ask her what was wrong, when he got a look at her face. It wasn't the tight, pale face of his wife anymore. It had transformed back into the youthful, supple face of Hermione Granger, along with the rest of her body. He squinted in disbelief, convinced the alcohol was playing tricks on him again, but when she took a step away from the sofa and shouted, "I told you, I'm not your wife!" She looked as terrified as he did, only less bewildered. Lucius opened his mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out. He was completely baffled and although the thought came to him that it was because she had taken the polyjuice potion, he still couldn't believe what had just happened. Hermione stomped away, heading for the door and aiming to do absolutely nothing else that evening except sleep soundly, alone, in her room behind a tightly locked door and perhaps even a firmly-placed dresser or two.

Lucius took in a heavy breath. No wonder it felt slightly off. For years Narcissa had been slowly losing interest in the physical side of their relationship, even turning down his advances a couple of times, but he thought for sure he would notice if he was kissing someone else. It was the alcohol, he thought. It had to be, otherwise he would have realized what he was doing and stopped, or never even done it at all. Wouldn't he? He shook the notion out of his head, ridiculous as it was, and watched her grab the handle of the door. It swung open and just as she was about to leave, he called out to her, "Hermione." She paused and kept her back to him, not recognizing her own name on his voice, before looking back at him over her shoulder. Lucius stared at her. "It'd be best if we don't mention that again. Forget it ever happened."

Hermione stared back at him and let out a snort. "Come morning, you won't remember a thing anyway with the state you've drank yourself into." She turned back to the doorway before remembering why she had come to the library in the first place. "I was going to say I'm sorry for using the polyjuice potion, but I think we're both sorry for that now."

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><p><em><strong>AN: Ugh, such a tease! It killed me not to have them forget their preconceived <strong>__**prejudices and just pounce on each other but unfortunately, that would be a bit too out of character, despite the pairing. Oh well, until later I suppose ;) Review and let me know what you thought. In the meantime, I'll try to get the next chapter out in some sort of reasonable amount of time.**_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	17. Chapter 17

_**Author's Notes: Surprise, surprise! An update! I was debating ending this where I did...as always, since I don't like posting short chapters, but I feel like it was just the perfect spot to end it. So yay for timely updates! Despite it's short length, it's definitely an important chapter so it's not one to skip :) Enjoy!**_

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><p>Chapter 17<p>

The door clicked closed behind her as she left his library, leaving him alone with his thoughts, as harsh as they were. He leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes, pressing his fists against his forehead as he tried to sort out exactly what happened only moments ago. In the back of his mind, he knew she wasn't really Narcissa. She had made that clear enough more than once, and yet whether he wanted to blame it on her appearance or the alcohol, it apparently didn't get through to him in those final seconds. His eyes opened and he thought about getting up, but with the cruel nature of whatever it was in the bottles scattered on the floor beside his desk, he knew it would be a bigger task than he was ready for. Ignoring the fact that he still had his shoes on, as well as all his clothes, Lucius pulled his legs up onto the sofa and laid flat on his back over its length. He didn't have the energy, nor the balance to make it back to his room and knew the last thing his stomach could handle after so many drinks, was the twisting and whirling feeling of apparation. Perhaps he should have brewed up that sobriety potion after all.

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><p>As Hermione stomped back to her room, her head was swimming with a million thoughts, surrounded by a dozen different emotions behind them all. Free from Narcissa's body, she stripped her clothes off and threw them on the floor beside the bed. She knew it was ridiculous, but she was convinced that they smelled of his expensive cologne and foul drinks, though he had barely been on her. She shook the thought out of her head, better to forget than to think about what had actually happened. He was intoxicated and she must have just been tired from going to the pub earlier in the night. That must have been it- the reason he did it in the first place, and the reason it took her so long to react the way she did. She frowned. Why was she even still thinking about it? Hermione walked into the bathroom and twisted the tub's facet all the way to the hot side. All she needed was a nice relaxing bath and a long night's rest, or what was left of the night at least. Come morning, she would decide what to do, if anything at all.<p>

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><p>Lazily, her eyes fluttered open hours later. She gave a good long stretch and pulled the bed sheets closer to her body as she tried to prolong the waking-up process a few minutes longer. It was inevitable. She would have to get up at some point and when she did, she knew it would only be a matter of time before she'd run into Malfoy. It was his home, after all. Perhaps she'd get lucky and they wouldn't cross paths before she could find Mimbi and get the little elf to apparate her back to the Leaky Cauldron. Then she could avoid him all together and somehow find her wand by herself. Yes, that was the brilliant plan she came up with overnight. <em>'Always running, Hermione…first from Ron, Harry, the wizarding world entirely, and now Malfoy…tsk tsk.'<em> She rubbed the sand from her eyes and pushed herself up to a seated position on the bed. She was just about to toss the sheets off of her and drag herself out of bed when she felt something lying just past her feet.

It was a folded piece of parchment paper, pinned securely to the heavy blanket so it wouldn't get kicked off as she slept. She reached forward and tucked at it until she heard a tearing sound and it came loose in her hands. She opened it and read it quickly to herself.

_**Went to run errands. Will be back before nightfall. Don't leave the manor.**_

_**-Luicius **_

Hermione grit her teeth. _'Don't leave the manor?'_ She thought angrily. _'What am I? His prisoner? And what the hell… was he in my room? The nerve of-,' _Hermione folded the note back up and noticed a quickly scribbled out message on the backside.

_**P.S. I had Mimbi deliver this to you.**_

She blushed at her obviously premature assumption, but even more so at the fact that he thought of it too and felt the need to add the extra note as an after thought. She narrowed her eyes and gave a mimed 'yuck' gesture, tossing the note back down on the bed covers. _'And who is he now to suddenly go out without me? He's been dragging me with him every chance he's gotten, trying to get as much publicity as he can- the death eater and the muggle-born…what a load of bull!' _Hermione was just pulling on her shirt when she caught herself. _'What am I doing? I shouldn't be wasting my time thinking about this. I need to get out of here!'_

The young witch roamed the halls in search of Malfoy's little house elf, Mimbi. She wasn't hard to find. If she wasn't popping in and out of random rooms, dusting and cleaning, then she was bound to be in the kitchen preparing a meal for when Hermione woke up. Hermione walked into the dining hall and sure enough, Mimbi appeared right beside the table in a snap with a tray of eggs and bacon, toast and orange juice, the works! Hermione felt bad knowing she wouldn't be staying to enjoy any of it, but if Malfoy decided to come back earlier than he had said, she didn't want to be hanging around. "Oh, Mimbi, that all looks lovely, really, but I can't stay." The elf's smile began to fade as she lowered the tray of food that she had been holding up proudly. "I need you to take me to the Leaky Cauldron."

Mimbi frowned and looked confused. "Master Malfoy said Mimbi must not let Miss Granger leave manor. Master said."

Hermione nearly rolled her eyes. _'Of course he would instruct her not to help me leave…'_ Again, she was offended. She wasn't his hostage. The war was over. He's not allowed to keep people detained in his home, no matter who he is or who he was. Hermione smiled down at the little elf, knowing she was only following orders. "Oh, I know that, Mimbi, but you must have misunderstood. I'm sure he meant not to let me leave alone. I've got you." She smiled wider. "You'll help me, won't you?"

The elf stared at her warily for another second before shaking her head. "Master Malfoy said…,"

She was stuck on what Malfoy had told her. Hermione suppressed a groan of frustration and just tried to keep smiling. "I know, I know. But you see, if he keeps me here, then he's actually breaking the law and can be sent away. The ministry will come to get him and take him to Azkaban, where he won't be safe. And you wouldn't want your Master to be in danger, would you?"

Mimbi's frown deepened as she ran it all through her head and tried to process what to believe and follow. If she did what Malfoy had told her to do, she would be following his direct orders, but he might end up going to Azkaban, and she couldn't let that happen as his house elf. Then on the other hand, if she helped Hermione leave, he wouldn't go to Azkaban, but she would be disobeying her Master, which was a terrible thing to do all in itself. Hermione watched as the dilemma played all over the poor elf's worried face. Their eyes were so big in proportion to the rest of their head that it was hard for them to truly hide their emotions, though they rarely felt the need to. Hermione leaned down closer to the little creature and whispered quietly, trying to sound as sincere as she could, "He's been to Azkaban once before…I don't think he can handle going back. It'd ruin him, and I'd hate to see that. I know you would too." Slowly, carefully, the little elf nodded her over-sized head, still slightly uncertain as to what she was agreeing to.

"Leaky Cauldron?" She asked cautiously. Hermione nodded with a smile. "But you return, yes?"

Hermione nodded again with a less convincing smile this time. "Yes, I'll return," She lied straight to Mimbi's face. Her eyes lit up with delight. She grabbed Hermione's hand and with a snap of her elongated, bony fingers, they vanished from the manor's elegant dining hall and reappeared in the less than squeaky clean Leaky Cauldron.

It was nearly empty but then again, it couldn't have been any later than eleven in the morning. After all, it was still a pub if you disregarded the inn portion of the establishment. Business typically didn't pick up until later on in the day. Hermione grinned as she glanced around and realized the little elf really apparated her out of Malfoy's home and back to the Leaky Cauldron like she asked. She wasn't sure if Mimbi would actually do it or not. "Thank you, Mimbi. I'm ok on my own now, I promise. I'll just go get a room and I'll be safe and sound. No worries."

Mimbi's eyes narrowed as she glared up at Hermione suspiciously. "You…return, yes?" Her voice was softer and Hermione could tell the house elf knew something wasn't right, but Hermione had never given her a reason for doubt before.

It made her feel terrible, to deceive this innocent, trusting creature who only ever wanted to be her friend. Not to mention, what would Malfoy do to Mimbi when he found out that she not only let Hermione leave, but helped her with the task? Sheepishly, Hermione forced out a weak smile and nodded. "Yeah. I'll come back." Suddenly, without any warning, Mimbi hurled herself at Hermione, wrapping her skinny arms around her waist, and rested her cheek against Hermione's torso in a full-on elf hug. It felt like an undernourished child was hugging her instead, what with the height difference and all, and it caught her off guard. Hermione rolled her eyes and gently placed a hand on Mimbi's back to solidify the house elf's affectionate gesture. _'Could this possibly get any harder?'_ After another awkward few seconds, Mimbi let go of Hermione's waist and took a step back.

"Tonight, you return?"

"I…," Hermione hesitated. "You should get back there, Mimbi. It's a big manor after all. I'm sure you've got a lot to do." Malfoy's house elf looked disappointed but eventually gave a tilt of her head and an overly excited wave before apparating out of the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione finally let out the breath she had been holding. She hated lying, especially to someone so trusting like Mimbi. It didn't feel right; it didn't feel like her at all. That's not the type of person she knew she was, and what was even worse was that lingering thought of what Mimbi may have to face when Malfoy returned and found Hermione gone. She collected her room key and tried to push it to the back of her mind. The last thing she needed on top of trying to figure out how to get her wand back, was even more crushing guilt.

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><p>"She did what?!" Lucius raged as he paced in front of his desk in the library. After arriving back at the manor, he thought she sure Hermione would be there, reading books as she usually chose to do. Instead, he found it bare, along with the rest of the manor's rooms. He summoned Mimbi to the library and demanded an explanation.<p>

Mimbi trembled, her knobby knees clicking together as they threatened to collapse beneath her. "Master Malfoy… Mimbi only wants to protect…to help,"

"Help? How in the world is this helping me, you stupid elf!" He shouted, changing his path and marching towards Mimbi's small frame. She cowered, readying her tiny body for an assault. Her eyes were squeezed tight but as she waited, and waited still, nothing came. Defensively, she peeked one eye open, followed by the other, and realized Malfoy had stepped away from her and was bend over his desk with his back facing the room. She could hear him breathing heavily, trying to control himself and his anger. He took in one last deep inhale of air before asking calmly, "Where is she?"

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><p>There was a loud banging on the door, so loud that it made her jump as she sat peacefully on the rented bed with today's copy of the Daily Prophet. There were still stories published about them, but they weren't on the front page anymore. It came as a relieve but Hermione wished they would just dropped the interest in them entirely and let them live without writing about everything they did. Really, the entire wizarding world didn't need to know that she happened to sneeze once after an unexpected flash of one of their photographer's cameras, and yet somehow that made its way into their latest article. Hermione tossed the paper to the side and bolted up from the bed. "Who is it?" She asked shakily before quickly realizing how silly the question sounded. She knew exactly who it was. Who else would it be?<p>

There was a pause, most likely as Malfoy had the same reaction as Hermione. _'Was she expecting someone else?'_ He waited to see if she would open up the door on her own but when he heard no movement from inside the room, he gritted his teeth together and announced, "Lucius Malfoy. Open the door."

Hermione frowned. She really wasn't expecting anyone else, but somehow in her mind she had been hoping it wouldn't be him. She remained beside the bed as she called over, "No."

Lucius groaned. He knew she was stubborn but this was just irritating. He'd always refused to talk to people through doors in the past. What made this so different. He tried again. "Just open the door."

"No," Hermione crossed her arms, though she knew he couldn't see her. She was sure it made her voice sound firmer, more confident. "Whatever you need to say to me, you can do it from out there."

He gave a quick glance around the hallway and noticed one of the doors down a few rooms quickly close as he spotted it. Someone had been watching their little mini-drama unfold like some pathetic muggle soap opera. He had enough. Leaning against the door with his face inches away from the old musty wood, he lowered his voice to a warning tone. "Hermione, open the door." He was growing tired of this game, evident by the fact that his forehead was now resting against the wooden surface in front of him, his eyes closed as his patience was wearing thin.

Suddenly the door shifted away from him, causing him to almost topple over had he not caught himself on the frame and regained the proper footing. Hermione stood in the small opening, her expression utterly disinterested. "Would it kill you to say please? Do you even know that word at all? It's easy. Puh-Lease. Now you try."

She was mocking him and he wouldn't have it. Pushing his way past the door, and her, Lucius shoved his way out of the narrow hallway and into her room. "I'm not in the mood. I told you not to leave the manor." He walked until he reached the center of the room, ignoring the bed as a possible seating option entirely, and decided to just remain standing.

Hermione shut the door and leaned her back against it, crossing her arms back over her chest. "Well maybe if you said please, I might have actually listened." Lucius disregarded her suggestion with a grunt and a dart of his eyes to the side, anywhere else in the room except on her. Taking a scolding from a muggle-born was not something he particular acknowledged, let alone took to heart. "I'm not your prisoner. I can come and go as I see fit, Malfoy."

"It was for your own protection," Lucius began. "You don't have a wand and apparently even less sense than I thought, seeing how you left without even mentioning it to me."

She let out an exaggerated laugh. "When would you have liked me to tell you? Before or after you got piss drunk and tried to take advantage of me?"

"Take advantage of you? Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" He scoffed. "Do you really think that was at all intentional?"

Hermione stared at him. Was this really his way of apologizing? If so, he was doing a terrible job at it. "Just sod off, Malfoy. There's no reason for you to even be here right now."

"I'm here to take you back to the manor."

"Not bloody likely!" Hermione shook her head. She looked at him like he was absolutely insane. He obviously wasn't getting it. She wasn't coming back. Not then, not tonight, not ever.

"Are you always this stubborn?" He grumbled, turning away from her to look out the window aimlessly, calming his temper so he wouldn't say anything he'd regret later.

Hermione shrugged cockily. "Yes, pretty much. If you've got a problem with it, no one's keeping you here. See? That's how normal people interact." She was referring again to his note telling her not to leave the manor. "Death eaters on the other hand, as I'm sure you're familiar with, detain people, keep them hostage, hold them against their will. That's where you went wrong, Malfoy. If you're not a death eater anymore, then you don't get to tell people when they can leave and when they can't. That's not how it works."

"Do you ever stop talking? Merlin's beard, it's non-stop with you." Malfoy ran a hand through his hair and Hermione noticed his upper lip pulled back in frustrated irritability. "I've already said that it was only to protect you while I was away. There's nothing else I can do."

She was baffled by his complete lack of proper social etiquette. Surely even among the snotty, two-faced pureblood folk he spent his lifetime with, this part of human interaction had been covered. She helped him along. "You could apologize!"

"Why would I apologize for trying to keep you safe?" He looked as offended as she did. As her voice rose, so did his.

Hermione stared at him in disbelief. "You're unbelievable, Malfoy." Slowly, she explained as if teaching a child, what exactly he was supposed to be apologetic for. "I don't want you to say you're sorry for trying to keep me at the manor. I want you to say you're sorry for trying to _kiss_ me."

Lucius rolled his eyes off to the side again, no longer looking directly at her. "This is completely ridiculous. We agreed we weren't going to talk about this."

She had her answer. He was too full of himself to actually do something so cripplingly polite as apologize when he was obviously in the wrong. She was done with him entirely. "Then say whatever you have to say and leave. I've had enough of you."

Where had he heard that before? Lucius brought his eyes back to hers and suddenly it hit him. _'Go to bed and don't bother me. I've had enough of you for one night,'_ his voice echoed harshly in his head as he remembered how they parted for the first time last night, after returning from the pub. She had asked him if he wanted to play their questions game, to talk, to learn a bit more about each other, and he not only shot her down, but did so cruelly for no other reason except that he felt like dirt. _'No wonder she's so upset…first that, then the incident last night in the library, and then the note this morning. Three strikes and you're out, old chap.'_ Lucius groaned silently with the sudden realization that perhaps she wasn't completely crazy for being so offended by now. Still, he couldn't apologize to her. She's a mudbl-…a muggle-born. He didn't have it in him. _'Just how you didn't have it in you to kiss her last night.'_ He had struggled so much with the thoughts of what he had done that he vowed never to think about it again, yet there it was, gnawing at his brain like an emaciated rodent trying to devour any scrap of food in sight. He shoved the events of last night to the back of his mind and walked towards the door, inadvertently walking towards her as well. "At least let me set up some protective charms around the room, put my mind at ease."

Hermione watched as his eyes scanned over hers, before she pushed herself off the door and opened it for him. "I'd rather stay in an unprotected room than with you for another second, Malfoy." She held her stare, to show she was firm about her decision. Of course she would be. When she rented the room, she asked the inn-keeper to charm the room with protective spells. Though she liked to think even if the room wasn't already thoroughly secured, she would still demand him to leave. She couldn't think of anything more embarrassing than kicking him out but asking him to set up charms first.

Lucius let his eyes trail down her face slowly as he decided whether or not to actually leave. Eventually, he knew the decision wasn't his to make. Years ago, if he were still a death eater, he would have stayed. Now, all he could do was nod silently and slip out of the room without another word. But before Hermione closed the door behind him, he pulled out a small package covered in brown paper wrappings and twine tied neatly in a bow. It was an odd shape, rectangular and shallow. It was definitely some sort of box, though what it contained, she could only guess at. He looked down at it in his hands and felt the last few moment of regret as he handed it to her, knowing if he didn't leave soon, he'd be likely to rip it out of her hands and run away with it. As she grabbed a hold of the wrapped box, Lucius dropped his hands to his sides and nodded down at it. "That's where I was this morning. It's why I didn't want you to leave the manor." With a half-hearted smile, flashed only for a second, Malfoy mumbled, "You know where to find me. Until then, Miss Granger," and left the room, leaving her alone at long last.

As soon as Hermione saw the box, the first thought that came to her mind was more jewelry. It was shaped somewhat like a box for bracelets or even necklaces in some instances. It took all she had not to roll her eyes and reject his gift just as easily as she did the protective charms, but she knew that would only make him stay even longer. As she grabbed it, it felt slightly different than she would imagine a jewelry box feeling. Not exactly heavier, but just…different. Still, she waited until he left and until she had closed to door to bring it over to the bed. At first, she had played at the idea of not even opening it. She could just chuck it out the window. Maybe she would get lucky and it would clock him on the head as he left the pub. Then she realized he would most likely apparate as soon as he could back to the manor. No chance of an aerial landing on top of his silly blonde hair. Hermione sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled at the twine's ends, loosening the knotted tie and letting it fall away from the package gently. The heavy paper wrappings crinkled as she pulled it quickly off the box, careful not to tear at the corners. It certainly didn't look like any jewelry boxes she had ever seen before. It was a deep green, so dark that it almost looked black when held away from the light. There was a silver border that upon closer inspection, appeared to be tiny hissing snakes. _'How Slytherin of him…' _Still, it didn't look like a jewelry box. If anything, it looked more like a… Hermione paused as she thought of what exactly she was holding in her hands. They began to tremble ever so slightly, just enough to make it seem as though the little snakes were slithering in place. With a newly found interest in the package, the gift, Hermione tore apart the box, nearly snapping the decorative hinges in the back in the process. She took in a deep breath and stared down at it, unsure as to why he would give it to her. It meant she no longer had to stay with him. She didn't need to rely on him anymore. She could go back home and ignore the wizarding world just as she had planned. If she wanted, she could try to find her wand on her own or try to rehabilitate her life as the witch that she knew she always was, and always needed to be. Hermione slowly reached into the box and pulled it out, whispered "Lumos," and watched as the room grew brighter.

The light was coming out of her brand new wand.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Surprise or did you expect that? It may not be her wand, but it's certainly a step towards gaining her full independence back! But will that be a good thing or a bad thing? :D As always, leave a review letting me know what you think. They really do brighten my day. Next chapter will be longer...I promise!<strong>_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	18. Chapter 18

_**Author's Notes: After writing, and then rewriting this chapter almost entirely, I think I'm finally happy with it. I have the feeling it'll be a little controversial, and I look forward to hearing all of your opinions in the reviews, but considering how awful I am at transitions...I'm happy with it haha. Be sure to review so I know what you think. Enjoy :)**_

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><p>Chapter 18<p>

Hermione sat, her brand new wand held delicately between her fingertips, and stared at the light coming from the end. She blinked once, twice, and closed her mouth as she realized her lips had parted unintentionally at some point. The brightness slowly faded away as she let the spell wind down. Still, she stared down at the length of wood in her hand. It felt similar to her old wand but she knew it held no allegiance to her. How could it? She had neither won it from its original owner-if it even had a prior owner, nor did she let it select her itself from a wand shop like her first wand did so many years ago. No, it wasn't hers, but at least it worked. Hermione glanced around the room quickly and pointed the wand at a book she had lying on the bedside table. "Accio book." Before she could even finish the second word, the book lifted from the small table and hurried over to Hermione's free hand. Again, her lips parted as she hissed in a deep breath. Yes, it worked. It worked well.

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><p>Feeling much less than confident in his decision to give Hermione the wand, Malfoy left the Leaky Cauldron with an unsettling feeling beginning to churn in his stomach. If all went well, he would see her again, for one reason or another, but things never seemed to go well for him anymore. Lucius pulled a silver timepiece from his inner cloak pocket and frowned. He'd wasted most of the day returning to the manor, interrogating that foolish little elf, and then dealing with an aggravatingly stubborn witch. He stuffed the timepiece back into his cloak and looked up just in time to see a pair of Daily Prophet reporters crossing the street to greet him. Lucius forced away his currently disappointed and all but photogenic demeanor, and pulled on a smile. "Gentlemen, as timely as ever, I see. I'm afraid a quick photograph is all you'll get today however."<p>

"Busy, Mr. Malfoy?" One of the reporters asked. Lucius nodded curtly and turned his eyes to the camera. The camera man hesitated. If they could get him talking, they would have a story to go along with the photo, otherwise they'd be left to find a story themselves. The first Daily Prophet worker drew Malfoy's attention back to him. "Miss Granger isn't with you today." He motioned towards the Leaky Cauldron and grinned deviously. "Dropping by for a visit?" He gave a suggestive wink, making Malfoy cringe innerly.

He regained his composure immediately and ignored the reporter's insinuations. "We had business to discuss."

The two reporters exchanged a glance and smiled. "And is it safe to say business is going well for you two? Any plans for this evening?"

Lucius wanted to hex them both. Instead, he titled his head and replied innocently, "I haven't given it much thought. Miss Granger will not be accompanying me, if that's what you're asking."

"No?" the photographer asked, surprised. "Has the whirlwind romance come to an end then?" Both reporters lit up, suddenly even more interested in prodding as much gossip out of Lucius as they could. A story about a break-up was in some ways even better than a story about an unusual relationship forming.

He smirked. "Now, now, gentlemen. I do believe it was the Daily Prophet who first spoke of romance, not us. We simply enjoy each other's company and will remain in touch. I'm uncertain where Miss Granger will decide to travel next, however I give her my best wishes."

The Daily Prophet workers looked at one another again and nodded at a silent thought. "How about that picture, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Of course." Lucius relaxed into a smile and posed, waiting for the flash. "Enjoy the rest of your day, gentlemen." The reporters smiled and bid Malfoy farewell just as he apparated out of sight.

* * *

><p>For the first hour, Hermione recited every spell she could bring to mind that was safe to use indoors. After she was convinced that she hadn't missed any, she removed the protective charms from the room and reapplied them herself. She broke one of the lamps with an impressively powerful reductor curse, and then repaired it with ease. Her heart was racing and she could have sworn she actually felt the blood pumping through her veins with each spell. Even before she lost her wand, she barely used it these past couple years. While at home with her parents, the only purpose she ever had for it was to first place and then reinforce protective charms around the house. It felt like ages since she'd actually used magic without doing so out of fear or paranoia of being attacked.<p>

She lowered the wand to her side as the thought hit her. She could go home. She could see her mum and dad again, her room, the local muggle library that she called her second home, all of it. Hermione never wanted to come back to the wizarding world after all. She was forced into it the night she was knocked unconscious and lost her wand. If she could, she would have returned home long ago. But it had been weeks since that night. Harry and Ginny's wedding was coming up soon and although she still wasn't sure if she'd be able to go, she knew that she wanted to. Hermione looked down at the wand dangling from her hand and knew this was the world she was meant to be in. She tucked it into her pocket and left the Leaky Cauldron.

* * *

><p>Lucius shoved Mimbi to the side when he apparated back to Malfoy Manor. The little elf was asking to take his cloak for him to hang up, as she always did when she saw him return. Mimbi toppled over onto the ground and watched Malfoy march off down a corridor. Apparently, he was still angry with her. She picked herself up and disappeared to go finish cleaning the final wing of the manor.<p>

He went to the library and noticed that his house elf had cleaned it since last night. The empty bottles that were beside his desk were gone, and the floor had been scrubbed free of any spilled alcohol. The sofa was fluffed and the cushions washed, as he had spent the night sleeping on them. Lucius walked past the sofa and reached for the bottom drawer of his desk. Empty. He pulled out the next one, empty as well. Had he drank his entire supply last night? He slammed the drawers closed, trying to make sense of where the rest of his special brew went to, when he spotted the crumpled up letter in the top left corner of his desk. He recognized it immediately as Narcissa's owl and turned away from the desk. If he didn't have anything to drink, he might as well not even bother reading over it again. There was a small waste basket tucked along the side of the desk but as his eyes trailed from the letter to the bin, he knew he couldn't bring himself to actually throw it away.

To ignore it would be his only option, assuming he didn't want to remember the way he felt last night. Lucius paced over to the seating area and grabbed the book he had left on the coffee table. He found his place and continued reading where he had left off days ago. It was a rather rare book, discussing the relevance of various historical artifacts to today's most prominent collectors. It had always been an amusing hobby of his, stemming from all the family heirlooms the Malfoys had accumulated throughout their time. Each item had a significance, a place, and a value, to which Lucius knew them all. He had just begun the chapter on treasured potion items- vials, flasks, beakers, and the like, when his eyes wandered off the pages and over to the other side of the sofa. They lingered on the unoccupied corner cushion for a moment longer before slowly turning back to his book, though his interest had somewhat faded.

* * *

><p>The rest of the day passed by slowly. Hermione spent some time down in the pub, tucked away so as not to be bothered, eating and drinking pumpkin juice as she thought about where to go next. She could just suck it up and go see Harry. She'd completely ditched him for the past two years, no owls, no visits, no signs that she was even alive until she popped back into the wizarding world recently, but he'd always been good like that. He'd always been easy to understand and quick to forgive. Still, a little drop of doubt twinged away in her gut and she knew it would take a lot more courage than that to just march up to Harry, or Ron for that matter. Hermione shifted her food around from side to side on her plate. There was always the option of going home, where magic didn't exist and things were simple. She felt the weight of the wand in her pocket and shook her head. Going back to the muggle world to hide was out of the question. She had tried that already, and look where it got her. Eating alone in a pub and sleeping in a rented room, paying by the day.<p>

After giving up trying to read in the library, Malfoy went to his study to unwind before dinner. Mimbi prepared a magnificent feast, five courses, each one richer and even more delicious than the last, but it was all wasted by the end of the night. Lucius picked at each dish idly before shoving the plate away from him. He thought for sure he would have heard from Hermione by now. As the hours passed, the realization that he may have misjudged her began to set in, as well as the regret. What was he thinking, giving her the wand? He should have given her time to calm down, then offered the wand. At least then, she may still be around. Lucius frowned. He had already gotten what he wanted. The publicity, their pictures in the paper, as well as some rather outlandish articles about his kindness and acceptance of a young muggle-born witch; it had all gone exactly as planned. Even with the reporters today, they'd write that Malfoy and Hermione had ended things peacefully and remain on good terms, leaving Lucius with a still spotless image in the ministry's eyes. The blonde wizard glared around the dinning hall, stopping automatically on the chair Hermione tended to sit in during her stay in the manor. If everything had gone exactly as planned, then why was he beginning to hate himself every time he remembered her? A clatter of dishes and broken glass rang through the dinning hall as Lucius shoved the plates and dinning wares off the table in one frustrated motion. Mimbi appeared as soon as she heard the noise and began to inspect the damage. "Make yourself useful and get this mess cleaned up," Lucius grumbled as he left the table.

* * *

><p>Three long days past. It was noon. NOON. Lucius watched as the second hand rounded the clock, pushing the minute hand just slightly past the 12 hour mark. <em>'<em>_**After **__noon! Where the hell is she?' _He had been wandering around the manor, trying to pass the time, but as he walked by a large grandfather clock near the front entrance, he couldn't distract himself another minute. He'd given Hermione the wand days ago and yet he hadn't heard a peep from her yet. _'Did she even open it? Maybe I should have told her what it was. What if she threw it away?' _He ran a hand through his hair and walked away from the over-sized clock. _'What the hell am I doing? She doesn't mean a damn thing. She's an arrogant, stubborn little mudblood. Not worth my time…'_

* * *

><p>The bookstore was just beginning to get busy. She had spent the entire morning roaming around its aisles, pulling various items off the shelves to flip through their pages. When she first woke up, her plan was to go visit Harry, maybe send him an owl and ask to go to lunch, so they could talk. It wasn't long before she came up with a dozen reasons not to meet with him. For now, she would just focus on finding their wedding present. Of course a trip to the bookstore was in order. She could go shopping for the present afterwards. After all, she no longer had Malfoy's library to use and some fresh reading material would do her well.<p>

Hours later with a stack of brand new books shrunken down and tucked away in her pocket, Hermione carried on down the row of shops. Her stomach grumbled as she passed a bakery and the smell of freshly made muffins and biscuits wafted out into the street. It had to be after noon, and she had already skipped breakfast. She turned into the small bakery and smiled as she saw the rows of different cookies and pastries. Perfect for a quick bite to eat!

As she stood in line, waiting her turn to approach the counter and put in her request, Hermione eyed the different varieties they offered and tried to decide which to pick. Somewhere between blueberry walnut muffins and pecan crunch butter cookies, she overheard the two women in front of her having an interesting discussion. "They say he's worse." The blonde witch remarked.

"Worse? Who could be worse than Voldemort? I swear, Betty, you're more gullible than I care to believe sometimes." The two witches took a step forward as the line moved along.

"No, really. That's what I heard. They say he's got followers and everything, and you know exactly the type of people who'd be looking for someone like that." She lowered her voice and whispered, "Death eaters."

The second witch waved her hand, brushing aside her friend's gossip like it were rubbish. "Oh, come on. Do you really think the ministry would let anything like that slip past them? Besides, who's this 'they' that you're hearing all this from? If there were any truth to all this, I'm sure I would have heard about it by now."

"I was at work just yesterday when a meeting with the minister himself was just finishing up. Everyone important was there. They don't call meetings like that for nothing, you know." They stepped forward and eyed a chocolate velvet cake that one of the bakers was just bringing out to display. "And when they were all leaving, I overheard Harry Potter say that he would take on another shift, to keep a closer eye on things of course."

"Harry Potter? You didn't say he was there."

"Well I said everyone important, didn't I? Besides, he got rid of Voldemort. The ministry would be fools not to have him in on this new guy, wouldn't they? I'm telling you, I heard it with my own two ears!"

Her friend laughed and shook her head. "Maybe you should get your ears checked." It was their turn in line and they began to point out different pastries to buy, poking all over the glass case wildly while the baker quickly bagged up each item.

Hermione was stunned. Malfoy had admitted that there was a small group forming, now that Voldemort was gone, but surely they couldn't have developed a huge following so quickly. And _worse than Voldemort_? He never mentioned that part. Come to think of it, he didn't really mention much at all. As far as she knew, he was trying to stay as far out of it as possible, so maybe he just didn't have all the information at the time. _'As if he would actually tell you everything he knew. You could go straight to the ministry and get him locked away for life just for breaking his probation.'_ She'd thought about it, but she knew she wouldn't ever do that. He was trying to fit his life back together, staying away from all that trouble, so why throw him under the bus when he's actually staying on the straight and narrow for once? Besides, obviously the ministry already knew, so she wouldn't be telling them anything they didn't already know. "Are you going to buy anything, Miss? I don't mean to rush you, but you're holding up the line."

The baker was standing with an open bag and a pair of tongs, waiting to arrange her order. Lost in thought, Hermione didn't realize it was her turn. "Oh, sorry. Um, I'll just have one of the blueberry muffins please."

"With nuts or without?"

"Without, thanks." He bagged it up and rang in her total. "Thanks. Keep the change." She pulled the pastry out of the bag as she walked away from the counter, peeling back the wrappings. She tried to think of something both Harry and Ginny would like, but couldn't get the conversation she overheard out of her head. If she did manage to talk to Harry, she could ask him about this dark new group of witches and wizards herself. _'I've spent so much time with Malfoy already. Who knows if Harry will even trust me enough to tell me something like that?'_ She knew she couldn't go back to Malfoy and ask him. He might tell her the truth, but that would mean actually talking to him again, which she vowed not to do. She pulled off a bit of the muffin and popped it into her mouth as she crossed the street. _'Come on, Hermione…he wasn't __**that**__ bad. So he's a pompous prick who only thinks of himself…if you can get information from him, why not? It could help the ministry prevent another war.'_ There it was, that brave, righteous Gryffindor spirit picking away at her again. She thought of the wand in her pocket. _'He gave you a wand…strength, independence, freedom. Would a truly bad man really do that?'_ She pushed the thought out of her mind and took another bite of her muffin. _'He's Lucius Malfoy. He's got a motive for everything. This is no different. The last thing he'd ever do selflessly is give a muggle-born witch a wand.'_ Hermione shrugged off any more thoughts of visiting Malfoy again. She was done with him, no matter why he had given her the wand.

* * *

><p>Lucius stepped out of the old antique shop and made his way out of Knockturn Alley. Of course he wasn't <em>supposed<em> to be there, but he couldn't resist picking up an order he had placed weeks ago that had just come in, another old artifact to add to his massive collection. He had spent his morning in Knockturn Alley, running errands, but now it was time to return back to the main, more acceptable shops. Perhaps he could find a few new books he had been eyeing. He walked down the street and passed the different array of shops on either side. As he continued walking, he began to smell the sweet scent of freshly baked pies, iced cookies, and tasty tea treats.

Hermione plucked another bit of her muffin away from the wrapping and brought it to her lips. She had no idea where she was going, but knew as soon as the perfect wedding-gift-selling shop passed by, it would pop out at her and draw her in. She had always been the type to plan gifts months in advance, so having such a short amount of time to find a gift for not only one person, but two, was going to be tricky. She was debating whether an engraved paperweight would be suitable or not, when she saw him. Directly ahead, walking straight for her, was Lucius Malfoy. _'What is he doing here?'_ She spun around on her heels and strode back towards the bakery, double time.

It was no use. He had seen her, possibly even before she had seen him. He watched as she practically sprinted down the road, ducking into the nearest shop for cover. _'I give her a wand, and she runs away? I swear…I'll never understand witches…'_ Lucius casually continued down the street and slipped into the shop Hermione had vanished in. As he looked around, there were racks of cloaks and robes, dress slacks and casual witch and wizard attire. It was a clothing shop filled from wall to wall with circular racks and various overflowing tables. He towered over the racks, quickly seeing that she was no where to be found. His eyes rolled over the racks a bit slower the second time. Would she really hide inside of them just to avoid him? From what he could see, she wasn't hiding in them. A mother and her son were paying for their purchase at a counter to his right. Patiently waiting in line behind them, he watched as the clerk bid them a good day and waved him over. "What can I do for you today?" she asked politely with a smile.

Lucius smiled back, appreciating her dedication to excellent customer service, and approached the counter. "I'm looking for someone. I thought I saw her come in here just a moment ago." He lifted his hand and held it around eye level, if not slightly lower, and added, "Around this tall, brown hair, brown eyes." He tried to recall what she was wearing but couldn't tell if her cloak had been a dark blue or simply black, but the woman nodded and pointed at the row of dressing room doors along the left wall of the shop. Lucius smiled. "Thank you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a single golden coin and pushed it across the countertop towards the young witch.

Making his way across the sales floor, he rounded the bulging racks and passed a pair of overly excited teenage witches who evidently had found the size they had been searching for. He paused in front of the first dressing room door and glanced back at the cashier. As he motioned towards the door silently, the cashier shook her head and waved him over to the next one. Again, she had him move to the third door before holding up her hand to keep him in place. With a smile, she gave him a thumbs up, signaling that he had the right dressing room, and Lucius turned towards it. He rapped on the door two times and waited for a response.

At first, there was nothing. But as he waited, a soft, "Occupied," rang out from behind the door.

He smirked and leaned his side against the door's flimsy frame. "I know," he called back to it's occupant confidently. He could have sworn he heard her curse from within the dressing room as she heard his voice, bringing an amused smirk to his lips. "How's the wand?"

Again, she hesitated. Malfoy's smirk faded. Was she really going to ignore him when he was standing right outside the door? Finally, Hermione answered. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

Lucius frowned, slightly tripped up by her forwardness. As he thought about it quickly, he realized he wasn't exactly sure why he was there, having followed her into the shop at all. He said the first thing that came to his mind. "I wanted to talk to you." Pulling his hand up to his forhead, he realized how ridiculous he sounded. He didn't want to talk to her. He was annoyed that she hadn't come crawling back to him as soon as she received the wand. At the very least, he expected an owl thanking him. But she hadn't contacted him at all, and most likely didn't plan to. Who would blame her? He backtracked and rephrased his response. "I assumed I would hear from you by now." He waited for a reply. None came, so he went on. "I'm surprised you're still here actually. I thought you would go back to your muggle life as soon as you could."

"I don't have my wand, Malfoy," she pressed through the door.

He raised his eye brows and nodded in agreement. "Well, yes, there is that I suppose. Though you seem to be doing fine with the new one. You could always just use that one if you wanted." He paused and crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "I managed to get one with a similar core. Dragon heartstring, isn't it?" He shrugged and added, "I thought it might have a better chance of understanding you well enough if you stuck with the same core type, though I'm not sure if that really matters at all."

Hermione stood inside the cramped dressing room and listened to him talk about the wand she could feel tucked safely away in her pants pocket. She looked down at it as he mentioned the wand's elements. "You remembered my core?" she asked automatically.

Lucius's eyebrow tweaked back upwards as he heard her finally speak. "Of course. It's the same as mine, so it was hard to forget." He heard her shift inside the dressing room and stared at the door, convinced it would finally open. The movement stilled and the door remained shut. There was a tiny sliver of space between the door and its frame and as Lucius settled back against the dressing room's structure, he could make out a small portion of Hermione's head through the opening. She was standing next to the wall, her right side facing the door, but he couldn't make out her face from the angle that the thin opening offered. A pair of customers passed by him and entered one of the dressing rooms a few spaces away and Lucius suddenly felt overly exposed. He straightened up, pulling away from Hermione's dressing room, and cleared his throat. "Have you eaten yet today? We can go have a late lunch. It'll be easier than talking through a door." _'And less embarrassing,'_ Lucius thought as another young witch eyed him suspiciously on her way to a nearby pile of bulky sweaters.

"What's there to talk about?" She asked flatly. Apparently she had not missed his company over the past few days or so as much as he missed hers.

He frowned and pulled out the only thing that had worked so far. "Your wand. I might have a lead though I'm not sure how reliable." He tried.

Hermione paused before quoting his earlier statement. "Like you said, I should be fine with the new one."

He let out a frustrated breath and leaned back against the door frame. She wasn't going to make this easy. "Where are you going to go? You can't stay at the Leaky Cauldron forever."

Hermione thought quickly. "I haven't decided yet, though I'm sure any of my friends would take me in if I asked them." She was bluffing. She had no idea where any of her old schoolmates had moved on to after the war. The only friends she knew about for certain were Harry and the Weasley's and he already knew her nervous doubts about whether or not they would accept her back after the way she left them years ago.

There was an uneasy stillness as he tried to think of another topic that might be helpful. "Your anxiety seems to be better."

Softly, Hermione agreed. "It is."

She wasn't budging, no matter how hard he tried. Finally, he tried the last thing he could think of. Honesty. After a quick glance around, he leaned in closer to the gap between the door and the frame and admitted quietly, "The manor feels empty." As soon as the words left his lips, he grimaced at the way they sounded. So pathetic, so weak. The tone alone felt foreign on his tongue.

It caught her off guard. Her brows pressed downwards as she tried to decipher what he was trying to get at. "It _is_ empty." It was true. With the number of unused rooms, it was nothing short of a waste of space. "It's a big estate," she added.

Malfoy knew she was right. "Emptier," he corrected himself. "I think Mimbi misses you." He had no idea how his house elf was feeling. He spent the past day ignoring her entirely, except for the few times he barked out orders or insulted her directly. However, he knew Hermione cared for the small creature. It was worth a shot.

There was a long pause that made Malfoy almost think she had gone mute on him again. Perhaps she disliked this open, honest Lucius even more than the usual rude, arrogant wizard she had come to know. He peered into the dressing room through the gap and watched her quickly bring her hand up to her face, before pulling it away. He followed it back down to her side and noticed a small wet patch, making her knuckles glisten. '_Was she…crying?'_ He squinted through the slender opening as she wiped her hand against her clothes, ridding it of the evidence completely. The door clicked, causing Lucius to take a step back and smooth a hand over his hair out of habit. Slowly, it opened and Hermione moved between the frame. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

Her eyes had a faint hue of pink that confirmed his suspicions. He didn't know how to feel about it, unfamiliar with the situation as a whole. Even worse, he had no idea how he was supposed to answer her. He was never good at these sort of things, the whole being-honest-thing. The few times he had actually spoke openly with anyone, he could count on one hand. Among those few instances, were the times he and Hermione played their questions game in the library. He took a stab in the dark. "Do you have any good questions for me, Miss Granger?" Lucius extended his hand and pressed his lips into a soft smile.

Hermione stared blankly as she realized what he was asking. It was exactly what she wanted. Just that morning when she overheard the pair of gossiping witches, she had thought about how useful their Q & A sessions would have been. She could ask him exactly what she wanted to know, and knew that even though he could betray her trust and lie, he wouldn't. Still not moving from the threshold of the dressing room, Hermione asked, "How many questions?"

Lucius's eyes traveled over her face as he thought. He hadn't exactly planned this out. He smiled and offered, "We'll let you decide this time." Chewing gently on the inside of her cheek, Hermione stepped forward and took his hand.

* * *

><p>As if she had never left, Hermione reclaimed her spot at the end of the sofa, with Lucius sitting on the opposite corner's cushion. "You can go first if you'd like," Lucius suggested as he rested his arm along the back of the sofa between them.<p>

Hermione paused before thinking out loud. "Do I need to decide how many questions we each get before we start?"

Lucius cocked his head slightly to the side, his right eyebrow twitching upwards. "You don't have to. We can improvise." Hermione nodded as she thought of which question to begin with. Merlin only knows, she had a dozen of them whirling around in her head.

With a steady tone, she began. "The ministry knows about this new group of death eaters."

It wasn't exactly a question, but Lucius gave her a short nod. "Yes, but they're not all death eaters. In fact I'd say nearly a quarter had no affiliation in the last war whatsoever. Neutral witches and wizards I suppose." Hermione found that hard to believe. If they had no allegiance to Voldemort, it wouldn't make sense for them to join a group called the '_Voldemort _retention strike'. Lucius felt no need to defend his statement. "What's your question?"

Without skipping a beat, Hermione asked, "Are you still in contact with the VRS?"

He tilted his chin upwards, leaning his head against the back of the sofa. "Yes, I am."

"But you're not a member?"

Ignoring her second question, no longer feeling the need to remind her of the rules of their game, Lucius went ahead with his own first question. "Why did you leave?"

Hermione squinted at him. "You know why I left. I told you already."

"No, what I meant was why you left and didn't come back or send an owl. I thought after receiving the wand I would hear from you again." He shrugged and added, "At the very least, I thought you would be suspicious of where it came from, if it were safe to use, traceable as we mentioned before. Any of those things would all mean having some form of contact with me again, but…nothing." Somehow he managed not to make it sound needy or pathetic, though coming from anyone else, Hermione was sure it would be an impossible task. The look in his eyes told her he was more offended than anything else. His ego had been bruised when she left. The thought made her smile.

She lowered his eyes, her head following slightly as she tried to calm herself to a more serious expression. It was hard to describe but as she really examined the question, one answer came to her. "I was getting too comfortable here." Lucius pressed his brows together, trying to understand how that could be a bad thing. "It was unsettling, to feel relaxed here of all places. I was sleeping well, with barely any nightmares, and almost never had any panic attacks. Then after what happened the other night…with you of all people, I just needed to get out."

"Hmm, I just assumed I had offended you."

Hermione began to shake her head slowly but it quickly turned to a half-shrug before finishing off as a gesture of agreement. "You always offend me. It's who you are." she admitted with an innocently honest smile. Lucius breathed out a short chuckle. He really couldn't deny the truth. Offending muggle-borns was what he was born to do. It was among some of his less savory talents. Hermione crossed her arms over her chest, bringing the attention back to the questions at hand. "While you're on the subject, why did you give me the wand? I'm sure you know how important something like that is, what it gives me."

'_Security, safety…freedom,'_ Malfoy knew exactly what it meant. He brought his hands together in his lap and stared down at them. "Would you like the truth?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione motion that she did. His jaw shifted in place as he tried to decide on the best way to explain his reasoning. "I felt you needed it. After your boldness, going into that pub with me…" he paused and changed his approach. "Your Gyffindor was showing," he teased. "And I think we both know that would only cause problems." Hermione smiled. He wasn't wrong. No matter how hard she tried, she knew she could never get rid of that fighting spirit, even without a wand. Malfoy raised his hand, his elbow resting on the armrest, and pressed his thumb and index finger against the side of his face. "What was your plan? If you weren't coming back here, where were you going to go?"

It was a simple question, one that Hermione had asked herself a day ago after she had left the manor. She didn't have an answer then either. "We're being completely honest?" She asked, an eyebrow raised. Lucius nodded, bidding her to respond. "I have absolutely no idea. I wanted to go back home but once I held the wand and felt it respond so well to me," she shook her head. "I was confused. I could have gone to Harry I suppose. He'd always take me in. I'm like a sister to him." Her thoughts faded as her voice trailed off.

"But you didn't." Lucius remarked.

"No. I was shopping for their wedding gift when you found me though." She said proudly. "I was going to see him eventually, work up the nerve to go visit him."

They fell silent. Malfoy stared at her from across the sofa. She looked so determined, but so unsure of what would happen. He could tell she was doubting whether she would ever get past this blockage she had put up between the people she loved and herself. "You will," he pressed. She looked at him, catching his gentle smile before it transformed back to his normally hardened state. "I'll drag you to the wedding one way or another. I promised, didn't I?" he teased her again.

As their laughter and chuckles came to a natural stopping point, the conversation turned serious once again. "Today, while I was out, I overheard something that I'm not sure if I should believe." Hermione's mind went back to the gossip she heard in the bakery.

"Did you?" Lucius questioned. "And what was that?" His arm flopped back down on the top of the sofa, filling the empty space between them smoothly.

Hermione shifted in her seat. "I need you to tell me the truth." She warned.

Lucius looked taken aback, suddenly realizing what she might ask him next may be a difficult question. He lifted his chin defensively. "I think we both know that I haven't lied so far."

She knew he was right. He had given her no reason to doubt him yet, but after her experiences with him and his kind during the war, it was always going to be a hard concept to accept. "The person leading this new group, the VRS. He's said to be worse than Voldemort was." She stopped to gauge his reaction, his expression, but he gave nothing away. She continued. "If that's true, and it's also true that he has followers, what's the likelihood of another war?"

For the first time since they started having these question and answer sessions weeks ago, Lucius considered bluffing. Hermione sensed it too. He faltered. "Who did you hear that from?"

Hermione gave an aimless wave of her hand and answered, "These two ditzy witches I was standing behind in line. I wasn't sure whether or not I should believe them but you never know." _'Actually, _I_ don't know…but that's why I'm asking **you**!' _Hermione thought to herself. "What have you heard about it?" She asked again.

Glancing down at the wand poking out of her pocket, Malfoy forced a hopeful smile onto his lips, though his words echoed anything but. "Perhaps there was a subconscious reason why I gave you a wand." Who was he kidding? He knew this was most certainly a reason behind his actions. "Should you need to protect yourself at one point or another," he added sheepishly. It wasn't something he had expected to be discussing, making it hard for him to control and flatten his tone. He almost didn't want to ask what he was wondering, but a part of him knew he needed an answer, though he couldn't say why it mattered so much to him. Perhaps he just liked her company after all. He had gotten used to having the little muggle-born around and over the time she had spent away from the manor, he realized just how empty the old mansion felt without her. Avoiding her eyes, he questioned, "Would you take up arms if another war broke out?"

He knew her answer before she even did. It would be easy to just go back to her parents in the muggle world and ignore all wizarding affairs entirely, but easy wasn't her style. After spending so many years fighting beside Harry and Ron, was there even an option at this point? "I suppose I'd have to. Why? Wouldn't you?"

Suddenly the realization of what she was asking hit her. Would he abandon all he'd ever known, his fellow death eaters, his prior allegiances, to join the side he had fought against for decades? Would they even accept him as one of their own…either side? His loyalty to Voldemort put him on the outs with the Order, while his association with her was sure to ruin his relationship with his death eater acquaintances. He was trapped between a rock and a hard place, and there she was, asking him to decide. "I mean, like you said, we'll be going to the wedding. I'm sure if everyone sees you there, with me of course, you'll be completely welcomed." She couldn't hide the doubt in her voice well enough. It didn't matter. She was asking him to fight with her in a war that hadn't even started. It was irrelevant, in his eyes.

"I would have to give it some thought." He replied sternly. Hermione frowned. Somehow, this wasn't the answer she had expected. It seemed obvious which side was the right side. Lucius noticed her disappointment. "Why you have preferred if I lied?"

Hermione brushed her head from side to side briefly. "I just thought you were serious about changing." Her eyes fell to her lap. "Making progress with your rehabilitation and everything, that's all." Lucius didn't know what to say. He didn't want to admit that he had pulled on an act the entire time, tricked her into thinking he was changing his ways, but in a way it wasn't a complete lie. After all, there he was, Lucius Malfoy, sitting on a sofa with the muggle-born witch, Hermione Granger, having a civil and somewhat intimate conversation. If it was change that she wanted, she was looking at it, but asking him to swap sides so suddenly simply wasn't going to happen.

"I didn't mean to mislead you." It was as close to an apology as she would get. He knew he didn't owe her one in particular, but it was easier than ignoring the hurt feelings he was sure she was having. She didn't respond. There was no need. Lucius took in a deep breath. "Any more questions?" He had lost track of who's turn it was, but as the questions became more personal, he became less interested in answering them.

She too was feeling the mental exhaustion. It was trying, to be so bloody honest when their brains were screaming at them to lie their mouths off. She was just about to say she was out of questions when one last nagging thought pestered her. Unsure of how they would part, this could have been the last chance she'd have to experience an entirely truthful Malfoy. Forcing her eyes closed and feeling her face flush with heat, she asked her final question. "If the polyjuice potion hadn't have worn off when it did…" Lucius instantly filled with regret. He should have known the topic of their misguided kiss would be brought to the surface. Hermione continued. "What would have happened?"

He was thankful she worded it the way she did. It made for an easy escape. "You would have reacted the same and it would have ended the same way that it did."

It should have been enough. She should have accepted his answer and left it best alone. If it weren't for that bold Gryffindor spirit… "And if I hadn't stopped you." Her eyes were still closed, shut tight to try to forget that it was in fact her asking this question. Maybe if she didn't see him sitting so close to her, she could pretend she was a silent observer, watching their interaction completely independently. She parted her lips and hissed in a breath. "What then?"

'_What is she asking? If she hadn't stopped me, I would have stopped it myself,'_ Lucius's voice rang out inside his head. _'Wouldn't I?'_ It was true that he missed having her around the past few days, but that meant nothing. It meant he was lonely, desperate for some company. It most certainly didn't mean he was somehow missing her in particular. Did it? _'Perhaps I misjudged her entirely. It wouldn't be so odd for her to have enjoyed our shared time as well…'_ He was trying to convince himself of something that wasn't helping the situation at all. It didn't matter if she enjoyed his company like he enjoyed hers. That's not what she was asking. _'That's not what she's asking at all…' _As he hesitated, fighting with his inner conscience, Hermione had opened her eyes. She was horrified by herself, ready to take back the question as quickly as it had come out of her mouth. And she would have, if Lucius didn't finally give her an answer in that instant. For perhaps the first time since Voldemort's death, Lucius's voice trembled. "I-I don't think I would have stopped."

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><p><em><strong>ANs: I'm sure this is one of those chapters where you'll either love it, or hate it. Hopefully we'll go with the first reaction ;) Either way, I want to hear what you think. Let me know in the reviews!<strong>_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	19. Chapter 19

_**Author's Notes: There's some major Ron/Hermione going on in this chapter. So while it's hugely important for the sake of the rest of the story...just figured I'd throw this little disclaimer in here so as not to completely horrify some folks. Ron/Hermione in a Lucius/Hermione fanfic? :O HOW DARE I! haha, but honestly, this is a Lucius/Hermione fanfic through and through. Just taking a momentary detour, necessary for the rest of the story to happen. You have been warned! :P Enjoy and be sure to leave a review letting me know what you think!  
><strong>_

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><p><em><strong>In the previous chapter:<strong>_

_When he hesitated, fighting with his inner conscience, Hermione had opened her eyes. She was horrified by herself, ready to take back the question as quickly as it had come out of her mouth. And she would have, if Lucius didn't finally give her an answer in that instant. For perhaps the first time since Voldemort's death, Lucius's voice trembled. "I-I don't think I would have stopped."_

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><p>Chapter 19<p>

She was speechless. He too had fallen silent, having said enough all too quickly. Still, he wasn't the type to take something back that he had so clearly stated only a moment ago. He was excellent at political double-talk, and wording his statements to sound exactly the way he wanted them to, but this was new territory entirely. It certainly wasn't politics, and neither of them had any idea how it was meant to sound. Hermione took the plunge and broke the ice that had formed after Malfoy's confession. "It's getting late. I should…" she let her words fade away as she stood from the sofa, ignoring his last answer as if she hadn't heard it.

Lucius stood quickly. "You're leaving?" There was a strain of alarm laced over his words.

With a short once-over his seemingly surprised face, Hermione nodded. "Is there a reason for me to stay?"

He was dumbfounded. Shaking his head briefly in disbelief, the wizard asked, "You ask me a question like that…_me_," Lucius emphasized, pressing the palm of one hand to his chest. "And then don't say anything in return?" He shook his head again, obviously offended by the young witch's actions. "I don't know how you're used to doing things with your little _friends_," Hermione knew he was, of course, referring to Ron and possibly any other suitors from her past. Krum, even McCormick if she really wanted to think so openly about it. Lucius wouldn't have any knowledge of them, but she was a young witch, just barely out of Hogwarts; there were bound to be at least a few '_little friends'_ as he so politely put it. Lucius finished, "But when you ask a question, and then get an answer, it's customary at the very least, to acknowledge it."

Hermione pushed out a heavy breath through her nostrils. She had ignored his response in an attempt to prevent any further uneasiness between them. After all, what would be the appropriate response when an ex-death eater tells a muggle-born witch that he doesn't regret kissing her and that their intimacy may have even gone further than that single kiss? There wasn't an appropriate response to speak of because it wasn't the answer he was supposed to give. But if he demanded she address it, then address it she would. "Nothing about this is _customary_, Malfoy. Don't kid yourself." He was staring at her, waiting for more of a response than just a correction on his wording. Hermione frowned as she thought quickly. "I don't know what you want me to say."

Lucius rose his arms slightly and gestured around the library. "What have I always wanted you to say in here? The truth." He forced his mouth into a doubtful smile. "How long have you been here? Weeks now, isn't it? Nearly a month. Look at me and tell me that you want nothing to come of…" he searched for the word, rolling his eyes at the space around them. Finally, he gave up and shrugged, "_this_, whatever this is we're doing together. Tell me you want nothing out of it and I'll accept that as the truth."

The truth. The more she thought, the more she realized how unclear the truth actually was. She thought of the Lucius Malfoy she had always known. Arrogant, rude, proud of himself just for being born into the 'right' kind of wizarding family. He was everything she had grown to hate ever since learning about purebloods in her first year at Hogwarts. The poster boy for snotty, elitist pureblood wizards was standing right there in front of her, but as she brought her eyes up to his, attempting to tell him exactly how little she felt about him, she had to pull her eyes away. He was right. They had been together for weeks now, bickering, arguing, insulting one another, but in between those many instances were the softer moments. Their time spent in this very library for one instance was enough to make her doubt everything she thought she felt about him. His stupid questions game seemed so silly at first but now as she thought about it, she knew it was most likely that mutual openness that helped them ignore their past roles and see only human companions in one another. It was foolish though, to think just because Lucius had somehow triumphed over his deeply ingrained prejudices, that Hermione would manage to do the same so easily. She lifted her chin and tried one more time to give her answer, but as she began, she knew her voice sounded nothing like the confidence she had wanted it to express. "I-I…" Her mind flashed back to that night, right here in the library, where he had made the bold advance on her. It was unexpected, completely uninvited, and yet for those few seconds that it lasted, it was…pleasant. Sweet, even. She had thought about it since then, imagining it would have been even better if the circumstance had been different. If he weren't completely plastered out of his mind, and she wasn't in the form of Narcissa Malfoy. _'Narcissa…'_ It hit her. Hermione shook her head and stated firmly. "You're still married. It doesn't matter what I want. It's not right…not proper." She frowned as the thought of breaking up a marriage crept into her head. It was the last thing she would ever consider herself-some sort of hussy.

Lucius let out a low, quick chuckle and crossed his arms over his chest. "Out of everything you could have said, everything you could have chosen about me, my past, anything…it's the legality of my marriage that bothers you the most?" Another burst of light laughter rumbled over him as he raised his brows in surprise. Just when he thought he was beginning to understand her, she threw out a curve ball.

Hermione mimicked his stance, crossing her own arms over her chest, and tilted her head to the side as she answered. "Well, I don't know how _you_ and your _little friends_ do things, but I'm not some home-wrecker."

Resisting another fit of chuckles, Lucius motioned around the room, his eyes following the path of his hands for emphasis. "I really don't think there's much of a home left for you to destroy." Before lowering his hands back down, he flicked his thumb behind him at the desk, more specifically, the crumpled up piece of parchment sitting awkwardly on top of it. "You read her owl. We're obviously not going to fix whatever she thinks went wrong between us."

"But that's exactly it." Hermione let out, just shy of interrupting him had he not already been through. " '_What __**she**__ thinks went wrong,'_ It wasn't mutual, which means if she hadn't said anything, you would be thinking entirely different right now." As her voice rose, the shakiness of it fading away, a few strands of hair fell loose from behind her ear. She tucked them back quickly and shook her head. "You wouldn't be saying any of this, or even thinking any of it."

His brows lowered. "There's no way of knowing what I would or wouldn't be thinking if things were different. I don't dwell in such useless theories. There's no purpose to it."

"It matters because I'm not interested in being anyone's rebound." Hermione replied. Lucius started to shake his head and reject any truth in what she was suggesting, but she stopped him. "If she came back-they, if they both came back tonight and wanted everything to go back to the way it was, you're telling me you would tell them no?" Silence. Lucius was staring at her, but she could tell by the blankness in his eyes that he wasn't able to answer her. After receiving Narcissa's owl, he had asked himself the very same question numerous times and every time, he came up with the same answer.

Hermione waited another second before nodding with a deflated smirk. "As I said, I should go." She turned back to the door and left the library. Lucius wanted to say something, wanted to deny the truth and tell her that he wouldn't take his wife back if he decided to pursue something more with Hermione, but he couldn't bring himself to lie, not to her and not in this room. As soon as the door clicked shut, he lunged for it, grabbing for the knob and tearing the door open, but she was gone. Glancing down the long corridors, Lucius realized he was the only one there. _'Damn that wand…'_ She had apparated out of Malfoy Manor, away from the library and away from him.

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><p>She was fine. <em>'Really…'<em> Hermione thought as she walked up the steps of the Leaky Cauldron to her rented room. Her eyes weren't any wetter than normal, her throat was perfectly clear of any lumps, and her chin was tilted upwards as she marched up the steps. After all, he wasn't worth a thing. He was 'Lucius Fucking Malfoy', pureblood elitist, muggle-born hater, and ex-death eater. Hermione laughed at the thought. _'Yeah…__**ex**__-death eater…not bloody likely!'_ A small smirk crept on over her lips as she thought of what the ministry would have to say when they find out that their model rehabilitation participant isn't as perfect as he's made them think. Her hand fell on top of the door knob as her smirk settled off into her usual neutral demeanor. _'Just because he thought you were some sleazy witch who would shack up with a married wizard doesn't mean it's right to go tattle-tailing on him to the ministry,' _Hermione knew her nagging thoughts were right. She was capable of many things but having someone sent to Azkaban just for the hell of it wasn't high up on her list of enjoyable hobbies. _'Even if he does deserve it…'_

Pushing the door open and shredding off her outer cloak, the realization hit her. The small, bare room with it's one lonely window, rickety bed, and tiny attached bathroom seemed so empty. It was of course; Hermione had no real possessions from home with her, so the only objects in the room that didn't belong to the Leaky Cauldron were items Lucius had given her. Clothes, a few books she had borrowed from the library, and the books she had purchased herself were her sole possessions. She felt like a nomad, realizing how minimal her room really was, despite having stayed there off and on in the weeks she had returned to the wizarding world. _'Well, you've stayed at Malfoy's more than you stayed here…'_ She frowned but couldn't honestly deny how much time she spent at the Manor. No wonder the papers had exploded over her return the way they did. Hermione walked towards the window, folding her arms over her chest and leaning against it's old wooden frame.

She stood beside the window, staring down as the busy street below became even busier as the late afternoon gradually turned to night. As smart as she was, the young witch couldn't find a way to kick the thoughts of Malfoy from her head. Abandoning the window's distractions, she switched over to the bed. If she couldn't numb her mind while awake, perhaps an early turn in would do the trick. Her bottom had just barely touched the bed covers when a knock on the door jolted her back to her feet. _'Damn it, Malfoy!'_ She cursed, before vocalizing her thoughts. "Perhaps you're just too thick to get the hint!" Hermione stalked towards the door. "Can I at least get a single day alone without you right beside me?" She yanked the door open. "I just need to thin-," The words cut off as she saw it wasn't Malfoy standing in her doorway. "Oh," she blushed, wondering exactly how much of her yelling he had heard through the door. "Harry…I didn't mean you."

Judging by the deep red color of his cheeks and the nervous look as she thrust the door open, he had heard every word. Still, in true Harry-fashion, when he saw her face soften as she recognized him, his lips curled into a genuine smile. Thankfully, he brushed off her overheard outburst without another mention. "It's okay. I was just nearby and when I passed by, I thought I saw you in the window." He glanced past her and spotted the window of her room, motioning towards it. "So I just thought I'd check in on you…" The words faded as he heard how childish it made her seem, as if she needed checking up on. He flashed another warm smile and added, "Just to say hi, I mean. Catch up."

Hermione nodded, biting on the inside of her bottom lip. She couldn't think of anything to say. She didn't want to just burst into some long-winded apology for avoiding him all this time, but she didn't want to completely ignore the fact either. With a sheepish glance, Hermione pushed a few fallen strands of hair behind her ear and asked, "So, is Ginny excited for the wedding?"

Harry's smile widened, letting out a short laugh. "Oh Hermione, she's gone mad with planning everything- her and Mrs. Weasley both! Dresses and decorations, invitations and flowers, it's like a whole massive thing with a million decisions. They're loving it!" He laughed again. "I swear, every day they're gone planning this or that, it's so chaotic. You should see it!" He caught himself, his face dropping as he added quietly, "I mean, if you want to. You don't have to. I just meant," He shrugged with a half-smile. "You know what I mean."

"I know, Harry." It was such an odd feeling, to have your best friend have to tip-toe around you as if you were meeting for the first time. She hated it. It wasn't Harry and it wasn't her. It felt uncomfortable and fake, but most of all, it made her feel as if their friendship had disappeared just like she did years ago. "Harry, I'm sorry."

"Hermione, you don't have to," he started.

"No, I need to say it. I need to get this out." She took a deep breath, closing her eyes to collect her thoughts before opening them and spilling out what she had kept bottled inside. "I'm sorry for leaving and worrying everyone. I'm sorry for abandoning Ron, especially that night that he found me. He could have died and I just left." Hermione lowered her eyes away from Harry's face and shook her head. "I just left him there. He saw me and knew it was me and I just…panicked. I started running but he grabbed me and I just got so scared, Harry. I apparated and he got splinched and it was all my fault! I'm so sorry." She was in tears. No matter how hard she tried to choke them back, they welled up around her eyes until her delicate lashes couldn't hold back any more tears. She had forced this all inside and now, as she finally confessed to Harry how sorry she really felt about Ron, about leaving, about everything, she fell apart in the doorway of her rented room above the Leaky Cauldron. "I'm so sorry, Harry." She coughed out one last apology before the lump in her throat prevented her from saying it any more.

But still, she tried. Harry did what any friend would. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. "It's okay. Hermione, it's okay." She was sniffling into his shoulder, still trying to croak out another apology, but all he could hear were muffled words mixed with soft sobs. "It's okay. No one blames you for anything." He could feel her hands against his back and knew that the last thing she needed in that moment was for him to let go. So he kept his arms around her, if not hugging even tighter, and felt his own throat begin to strain. "It's not your fault." Squeezing open his eyes from behind the round black frames of the glasses, Harry looked around the room behind her. He spotted the stack of books sitting on the bedside table and a cloak tossed over the back of a wooden chair. All replaceable. With Hermione still in his embrace, Harry gave one last try. "Hermione, let me take you to the burrow, please. I promise no one blames you for leaving." He waited and felt her tense but after a few seconds, all he heard was her softly sniffling against his shoulder. Carefully leaning back, he dropped his arms from around her and felt her hands leave his back. His face looked concerned, if only because he feared she would deny his request again, but she nodded silently and took in a deep breath. Harry beamed with delight, swallowed down the last of the lump in his throat, and brushed the tears away from her cheeks. "I promise you won't regret this, Hermione. Really, we've all missed you." They cupped hands and disappeared from the Leaky Cauldron in an instant.

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><p>She had just swallowed down the last of her tears before Harry apparated them both to the Weasley's home. They were standing on the front steps but Hermione could hear at least a few of the Weasley clan inside. "Is Ron here?"<p>

Harry shook his head. "He's at quidditch practice but he'll be home soon."

Hermione looked down, nodding softly. "Good. It'll be easier."

"You'll be alright." Harry smiled. "Have I ever taken you anywhere dangerous before?" His grin deepened as Hermione rolled her eyes. Out of all the years she had known Harry, she had more near-death experiences than most people would have in their lifetime. Harry laughed. "Well, we always came out alive at least, didn't we?" Hermione laughed and playfully pushed at his arm.

Suddenly, the door in front of them swung open. "Oh." It was Ginny. Her eyes bounced from Harry to Hermione, paused for a moment, then returned to Harry. "I thought I heard you out here." She glanced back at Hermione. "Is it…" Ginny discretely brought the door closer to her body, taking a step out onto the front steps, and lowered her voice. "Is it okay if everyone knows you're here? I mean, it's just mum and Fleur, but the boys should be getting home any minute now."

Feeling slightly less comfortable, Hermione began to regret coming at all. Harry stepped in. "It's fine. Hermione knows she's always welcomed here." With a gentle hand resting on her shoulder and another friendly smile, Harry calmed her nerves as much as he could. "Come on. Molly's been worried sick about you ever since you started popping up on the Daily Prophet's front page." Conveniently, he left off who she was _popping up_ next to, but Hermione felt no need to bring up the topic of Lucius Malfoy.

"Mum, look who Harry's brought with him." Ginny's voice rang through the small home as Harry and Hermione trailed closely behind.

They entered the kitchen, Ginny and Harry first, as Mrs. Weasley stood from the table which was covered in flower samples. Fleur's mouth dropped open before turning quickly upwards into a wide grin as she caught sight of Hermione from behind Harry and Ginny. From Molly Weasley's side of the table though, Hermione was still tucked too far behind them to see. Ginny stepped forward and sat down next to Fleur, her eyes shifting between Hermione and her mother. It was nerve-wracking, standing in the Weasley's kitchen in dead silence as the ever-cheerful Mrs. Weasley stared so stilly, blankly at her. She didn't look angry but that didn't stop Hermione's heart from nearly pounding loud enough for all of them to hear. Had Harry lured her into a trap? Everything he said about no one hating her and everyone forgiving her, was it all a lie just to get her here so they could yell and berate her for all she had done? Hermione's eyes darted around the room, spotting the nearest exits just in case the option to simply run back out the front door or apparate out of there wasn't available. One final second passed before she was suddenly in Mrs. Weasley's comforting embrace. She had started crying before she even reached Hermione, despite how quickly she had moved around the family's kitchen table. "Hermione, my dear!" Her hug was so strong, squeezing Hermione all around in the way only a mother could. "I was so worried. We all were."

"Mum the most," Ginny chimed in with a teasing smile. Hermione peered over Mrs. Weasley's shoulder and saw that both Harry and Fleur were also grinning at them. Ginny laughed. "Give her some air, mum. You'll strangle her before Ron even gets a chance to see her!" Mrs. Weasley let go, still standing close with her hands resting on Hermione's shoulders, beaming happily.

"See who?" The front door closed just as the familiar vocie called into the kitchen. Hermione froze. The laughter and smiles of the room died down in that instant and Hermione knew that Ron was standing right behind her.

She closed her eyes tightly, not wanting to turn around and face him, but the sudden stillness all around them forced her to pry them back open. Slowly, she turned around to see him. With a weak smile, Hermione peeped, "Hi Ron."

His hair was matted down, still sweaty from quidditch practice, but his face had turned pale as he saw her. "'Mione," he breathed. No one else spoke, even as Mr. Weasley and George walked into the kitchen behind him. George's contagious smile caught Hermione's eye, making her lips tweak upwards as well. Her eyes shifted back to Ron's. He hadn't moved.

"Well," Mrs. Weasley announced loudly, "Now that we're all home, safe and sound, I better get dinner started. Fleur, will you give me a hand?"

"I'll help, mum." Ginny stood from the table quickly. Harry followed her lead, giving Ron an encouraging nod as he pushed his chair in.

"Good, good. More helpers and we'll have dinner on the table in no time. George, dear, will you go get Bill and Percy from the garden? Go wash up. Everyone out of the kitchen unless you're helping!" Mrs. Weasley shooed them away from the table and began clearing off the array of colorful flowers that littered the table top.

George hurried past Ron and Hermione towards the back door while Mr. Weasley followed. He smiled and nodded at Hermione, patting a hand on her shoulder. "It's good to have you back, Hermione. You're always welcome here."

"Thanks, Mr. Weasley." Hermione smiled back, earning another nod in return before Mr. Weasley disappeared out of the kitchen as well.

Ron was still staring at her from the entrance of the kitchen. Hermione's cheek's relaxed, dropping down into a frown. _'He __**is**__ mad at me…'_ she thought painfully. Mrs. Weasley was walking towards them, making a sweeping motion with her hands as she repeated that only helpers were allowed in the kitchen. Ron glanced at her before returning back to Hermione. Finally he spoke. "Can I talk to you?" His voice was low, guarded, but Hermione could tell he honestly did want to talk to her. Hermione nodded and she could have sworn she saw a flash of relief wash over him. Extending his arm towards the staircase, Ron waited for her to go up first. It was hard to have a private conversation in such a full house, but at least upstairs was quieter than downstairs.

As she reached the landing, Hermione turned into Ron's room and took in a deep breath. "Listen, Ron. I know you're mad at me but I'm-,"

She started to apologize, the same way she did with Harry, hopefully without all the crying, but just as she began, she felt his hands on her waist. He pulled her close, draping his arms around her. Hermione spun around, startled at first, not expecting him to reach for her, but quickly realizing it wasn't out of anger, she relaxed. His head tilted down to hers, grabbing at her lips with his own fiercely. It was deep and although unexpected, more than welcomed. She relaxed even further, having missed this side of Ron. He was so horrible at romance and wooing witches, but somehow when he was with Hermione, it all came naturally. As they parted briefly, he mumbled against her, "Gods, 'Mione. I thought I'd lost you." He pulled her back against him and Hermione leaned in, wrapping her arms around his neck, gently stroking the sides of his cheeks with her palms.

"I'm sorry, Ron. I'm so sorry." She could feel her eyes beginning to water, just as they had earlier with Harry.

Ron stopped her, catching her again in another heated entanglement, joined at the lips. As they broke, he replied quickly, "No, it's my fault. I'm sorry. Just don't leave again. Please, 'Mione." Hermione cringed. He had nothing to apologize for, but before she could correct him, they were together again. They were stepping backwards, still connected as the backs of his calves hit the side of the bed frame. Collapsing down onto it, Ron shifted over her, bringing his hand down from her face to her shoulders, tracing shakily over her arms, before settling at her hips. He was stronger than Hermione remembered. _'It must be all the Quidditch,'_ she thought. Their breathing quickened but Ron pulled away suddenly, kneeling on the mattress to pull his shirt off more easily. After freeing himself from it and tossing it on the floor, he lowered back down above Hermione, reuniting once more. Hermione grabbed at his arms, resting her hands on his biceps comfortably. She could have sworn she heard someone downstairs, but her mind wasn't on anything else except that moment, that room, and Ron. His palm moved from her hip to her stomach, sliding under her shirt, continuing upwards. After feeling around the front, he moved over to the back, pulling at the hook straps. Another minute or so of heated kisses matched with an awkward struggle with the back of Hermione's bra, and Ron grunted in frustration, "How do I get this off?"

"It's just a hook." Hermione hurried out a reply, lifting her shoulders off the bed in an effort to make the undergarment's binding easier to reach.

He tried again, not interrupting their kiss, and pulled at the strap harder. It wouldn't budge. "Ugh, I'll just leave it on." Giving up on the hook, Ron moved back to the front, pushing the entirely intimate article upwards, freeing her breasts one at a time. His hand had just cupped her right side when a knock stopped them. Ron pushed himself off of Hermione, grabbing his shirt off the floor as Hermione straightened her clothes. "What?!" He yelled out at the door, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice.

"Mum says dinner's ready." It was George. He opened the door and spotted them both sitting on his bed, cheeks red and chests pounding as they tried to catch their breath discreetly. George winked. "Hope I wasn't interrupting _anything_."

Ron grabbed a pillow and threw it at the door just as his brother yanked it closed. "Sod off!" They waited, listening to his footsteps running down the stairs. When they became too quiet to hear, Ron turned back to Hermione, his eyes softened with a gentle smile over his face. "I'm really glad you came back." He reached his hand back up to her face and brushed his lips over hers again.

Hermione laughed, pushing him away playfully. "I can see that." Ron blushed with a smirk. "Come on," she stood. "Let's go before George comes back."

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><p>It felt familiar. Hermione, Ginny, Ron, and Harry sat on the floor of a bedroom upstairs, surrounding a small wooden table with a few scattered papers on top. It was their go-to spot to talk in as much privacy as they could get in the burrow. George and Percy had gone out with his father while Bill and Fleur were busy downstairs discussing which wedding decorations to reuse for the current wedding with Mrs. Weasley. Not much was salvageable, barely anything really, what with how Bill and Fleur's wedding had ended, but there were a few small trinkets that had survived the attack. Upstairs, Ron sat beside Hermione, their pinky fingers twisted together casually beneath the short table. No doubt, Harry and Ginny were doing the same thing under the opposite side. It didn't distract them from the discussion at hand. "You're absolutely positive that's what you heard, Hermione?"<p>

"Yes! How would I misunderstand something like that?" Hermione insisted. She hated being second guessed, but having been around Harry for years, she knew they had to be certain before acting. "They're recruiting, Harry. All the old death eaters are being contacted, asked to join the ranks of whoever this new wizard is."

Harry stared down at the natural brown grain of the table's surface, frustration running rampant over his eyes. "There's no reason for another war. The ministry's been keeping an eye on everything, everyone. We're finally safe." He shook his head. "There's just no reason why another war would start."

Ron was bobbing his head, quietly in agreement, while Ginny lifted a hand onto Harry's back in comfort. Hermione frowned. "Of course there's a reason for a war." Three sets of eyes lifted in unison, falling on Hermione. She blushed but continued with her explanation. "There's always a reason for fighting and battles, otherwise they wouldn't happen. Someone always feels cheated, neglected, or forgotten. That's what starts wars. Hard feelings."

"That's all well and great in theory, Hermione but Voldemort was only killed two years ago. How bad could things have gotten for people in only two years?" Harry was the first to speak out. It made sense, that someone had to be angry or disappointed in order for a war to start up again, but everything had been going so well since Voldemort's demise. There was finally a calm, safe feeling throughout the wizarding community. It was what Harry had fought so hard for all these years. Peace.

But his mind was clouded. Hermione looked around from face to face, realizing they were all oblivious to what she now saw so clearly. "The death eaters, Harry." Ron grit his teeth next to her and Ginny let out a mumbled groan. "Really," Hermione insisted. "Think about it. They were defeated, their leader killed publicly for everyone to see, and then forced into hiding or sent to Azkaban to rot. Why wouldn't they be angry?"

"So they're angry!" Harry shot back. "So what? No one forced them to join up with Voldemort."

Hermione frowned. _'Actually, considering how pushy and violent the death eaters tended to be, the idea that many of them were forced into it isn't so far fetched…'_ She shook her head and tried again. "But they were defeated over night, made to either flee in fear of the ministry's prosecutions, getting locked away with the dementors, or worse. Which means they had to abandon their homes, their friends, family, and their lives. If this new dark wizard is offering them a chance to get all that back, it's no wonder how he's building up followers so quickly. They needed a way back into society and this was that way."

"No." Harry stated flatly. "The ministry's offered them exactly that. You should know it better than anyone. The rehabilitation program." Hermione's cheeks flushed. They hadn't mentioned her time with Lucius at all since she came to the burrow hours ago. She knew it would come up eventually, but not like this. As she thought back on her words, it really did sound as if she was defending the death eaters. No wonder Harry was getting so animated. Even Ron, sitting next to her, had pulled his eyes away from hers the more she spoke of the death eaters. "We've allowed them back in, given them a chance to prove that they've changed, that they want to become law abiding citizens. _That's_ their way back into society! Not some whacko wizard, trying to take Voldemort's place."

Her eyes shot down in front of her, avoiding the looks she knew Harry was still giving her from across the table. She didn't even want to think about whether or not Ginny was giving her the same doubtful glare. "I only meant, that's probably why he's got so many followers so soon. There's an entire group that's been ostracized after Voldemort's death. Not everyone is accepted into the rehabilitation program, Harry. In fact, not many at all, and what happens to the rest of them? They're forgotten and ignored by the ministry, so they go to someone who won't discard them so quickly." She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. It was too in-depth, sounding too caring no matter how neutral she tried to make her voice appear.

Ron, Harry, and Ginny silently stared as Hermione finished, quietly recoiling her hand away from Ron's and resting it awkwardly in her lap beneath the table. It felt like ages before Ginny finally broke the stillness with a suggestive comment. "You seem awfully knowledgeable about death eater affairs, Hermione."

"Oh, come on!" Ron burst. "Will you just leave it alone?"

Ginny snapped back. "I was only saying what we all were thinking! Don't blame me just because you don't have the guts to say it!"

"Alright, let's just leave it there." Harry tried to put a divide between them, standing from the floor quickly. He shifted to Hermione. "No one's saying anything like that, Hermione. We're just trying to understand why you're defending them."

Hermione stood. "I'm not defending anyone!" Her arms folded over her chest as she knew no matter what Harry tried to say, she was being judged because of her time at the manor. "I'm just telling you the truth. You'd think helpful information would be welcomed."

"It is, 'Mione. It is." Ron reached up to hold Hermione's hand, still sitting on the floor beside her. "We just mean that it sounded a bit off, you know? The wording. That's all." He was trying so hard. Hermione glanced down at him and after catching his stare, she knew he was giving it his all because he didn't want her to leave again. It would kill him, to have her back, only to disappear again the very same day.

She bit down her back teeth and looked to Harry. "Then I'll rephrase it. They're mad because everyone hates them. _That _is their motive for a war." Pulling herself back down to the floor, Hermione regained her spot next to Ron, finally done with her attempt to provide a little valuable insight on this new death eater group.

Ron wrapped an arm around her and whispered that he loved her, but Harry remained standing. With a still-frustrated sigh, he muttered, "I'll see you guys in the morning."

As Harry left the room, Ginny looked from the doorway to Ron and Hermione. "I better go talk to him." She motioned towards the door and Ron nodded sullenly. Ginny stood and followed Harry out of the room, calling after him as he stomped down the stairs.

Ron shrugged, pulling on a semi-comforting smile. "He'll come around. He's just been under a lot of pressure with the ministry and all. With this dark wizard now, Harry's just got a lot on his shoulders. That's all." Hermione nodded. "Let's get to bed. Dad wants us all up early tomorrow so we can try out fabrics for the wedding party's dress robes." His face frowned in a sudden blast of confusion. "Or was it fabrics for the tablecloths? I swear, 'Mione. They've been planning so much, it's making my head spin." They both burst into a fit of giggles, joking about the different designs that could suit both robes and tablecloths, and eventually, as the night wore on, they reunited with locked lips once more.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Warned you guys. I really don't think I write RWHG very well, since they're not my sort of pairing at all, but as I stated...it's necessary in this case. No worries though. This is most definitely first and foremost a LM/HG fanfic :) I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to write much of Lucius in this chapter though. I'll make up for it in the next chapter ;) 'Til then! Leave a review, letting me know what you think, how you're liking/not liking this fanfic so far, and if you're not liking it, let me know why. I'm honestly expecting a bunch of reviews against this chapter simply for the Ron-centered aspect of it but eh...it's gotta happen! Thank you all for the reviews so far. It's been really lovely and I hope you all enjoy the rest of the story as it's posted :)**_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	20. Chapter 20

**_Author's Notes: First of all, thank you for your reviews and the overall attention this fanfic is getting. I really love reading what you guys think and any feedback that's given, good or bad, so thank you! It's definitely appreciated!_**

**_This is actually 2 chapters put together because they worked better as one, so my apologizes for the long wait, but hopefully this long chapter will make up for lost time ;)_**

**_Just a fair warning, it might be helpful to re-familiarize yourself with the story by skimming over some of the earlier chapters, as it has been a little while since I've uploaded, and I decided not to do a whole lot of repeating back-story in this chapter (didn't want to make it too long after all!)  
><em>**

**_I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Let me know what you think!  
><em>**

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><p>Chapter 20<p>

"What do you mean, you don't know where she is?" He was fuming. Lucius thrust the knuckles of his right fist against the Leaky Cauldron's bar countertop and leaned in closer to the witch standing behind it.

Without batting an eye, the witch with a slightly soiled apron wrapped around her waist, cleared an empty glass from the stool next to Lucius. "This is an inn, Mr. Malfoy. Not a nanny service." He grit his teeth at her obvious lack of respect. "Now I'll ask you again, would you like a drink or not?"

Lucius glared around at the empty bar stools and bare tables behind him. "As if you have anything better to do," he hissed. When the bar-witch continued to impatiently stare at him as she wiped down the counter, Lucius pushed out an infamous Malfoy smirk and answered her. "I think not." He kicked off of the stool he had been leaning on, turned away from the bar and muttered, "I wouldn't want to catch anything."

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><p>"That doesn't make any sense, Hermione." Ginny was standing in the kitchen, helping her mother wash the plates while Hermione was cleaning off the table for lunch. Percy had to return to work, as well as Harry and Mr. Weasley, but Bill and Fleur had stayed to visit for a little vacation. Ron had been given the rest of the week off, due to Hermione's return, but was expected back on the Quidditch pitch by early Monday morning. Naturally, he was still fast asleep upstairs.<p>

Hermione reached the end of the table and started to double back, clearing off the chairs of anything other than a cushion. "I know it's hard to believe but it's true. If we only offered some safety, a fresh start, then I'm sure we'd be able to bring loads of them over to our side."

"But why would we want them?" Ginny asked, disgusted. Molly Weasley tried to hush her, but she persisted. "Honestly, what good would come from putting a bunch of death eaters together with the rest of us? We'd all get slaughtered in our sleep and they'd have their perfect little corrupt world." She shook her head. "I just don't see why we need them."

Mrs. Weasley stirred the contents of a pot sitting on top of the stove before letting it go on its own, stirring at its own pace by means of a well-practiced charm. "It's better to have the numbers on our side, dear. The less we have to fight off, the better."

"Right, if that were the case, mum. But it's not. Like I said, what happens when we take all of these death eaters in?"

"**Ex-**death eaters," Hermione corrected her.

Ginny rolled her eyes and continued. "Right. _Ex_-death eaters. What happens when we take them in and give them shelter? We can't trust them. It'd be even more work just trying to keep an eye on them."

Hermione had finished with the chairs and was rounding the corner of the table. "We trusted them years ago, when they were our neighbors, professors, friends— before we knew that they were serving the Dark Lord," she suggested.

"Exactly. We were oblivious to who they really were. I don't know about you, but I'd rather know my enemies now than get surprised later." Ginny had picked up a stack of plates and was placing them around the table in front of each chair. Hermione followed behind with a handful of eating utensils, all different sizes, styles, and shapes.

"There won't be any surprises," she groaned. It was a losing battle and as she thought about it, if someone had been telling her the same things only a year ago, she'd probably be reacting the same way as Ginny. "It doesn't matter. It was just a thought."

* * *

><p>Back at the manor, Malfoy sat stiffly in his office with his leg crossed over his knee at the ankle. His hand rested tightly on his calf, cupping it as he waited anxiously for his house elf's return. It seemed like hours that the tiny creature had been gone and there he sat, having not moved a single inch since she had left. With a snap and a pop, he felt the air inside the room shift and crackle around him, just as Mimbi appeared in front of his chair. "Well?" he asked quickly.<p>

Sadly, the elf lowered her head and rocked it from side to side. "No, Master. Nothing."

"How could she just vanish?" He growled, frustration setting in. After a moment of silent thought, he asked, "You checked the muggle home?"

Mimbi held up her long, bony hand, extending two fingers and nodded. "Twice."

Malfoy groaned, leaning back against his oversized chair. He drew a hand against the side of his face, rubbing his index finger just over the arch of his right eyebrow. "I knew I should have put a tracker on that bloody wand…"

He had been talking more to himself than to anyone in particular, but Mimbi missed the intention. "But Master Malfoy said to track the witch is bad." The skinny elf brought her eyes down to the floor, trying to recall the word he had used. It came to her and she lifted her head happily, eagerly nodding, "'_Deceitful', _yes?"

His eyes narrowed as his lips curled into a snarl. Suddenly a magical alarm rang through the manor and they both immediately recognized it as the enchanted door-knocker. Malfoy dropped his hand back down to the chair's armrest and barked, "Make yourself useful and direct our guests to the parlor. Tell them I'll be there shortly." Mimbi vanished from the room and Lucius lifted himself from the chair heavily. Reaching into his cloak's deep outer pocket, he withdrew a crumbled up piece of parchment along with his wand. Placing it gently on his desk, he buried the tip of his wand in one of the paper's messy folds and muttered a single spell. Immediately the balled-up wad of parchment caught fire, becoming engulfed in the soft glow of its own flames. He could only bare to watch the burning mess for a matter of seconds, just long enough to see the once elegant handwriting begin to warp and char against the heat of the fire. Lucius dragged his eyes away from his desk, tucking his wand inside his cloak, and headed for the door. The destructive spell would die out on its own after a few minutes, after the parchment turned to ash, leaving nothing more than a pile of burnt bits on top of his desk.

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><p>With their bellies full and the kitchen cleaning itself up all around them, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione sat at the Weasley's table with a tray of Mrs. Weasley's famous chocolate chip cinnamon cookies between them. "No, we've had a really good season so far. I could definitely see us taking the lead back in a matter of a few games." Ron was discussing Quidditch and how well his team had been doing lately.<p>

"You should come see a game sometime, Hermione. Ron's gotten really great." Harry smiled across the table at her, glancing at Ron as he spoke. "He's not as awful as he was in Hogwarts, I promise." Ginny snorted out a laugh, just barely managing to swallow the pumpkin juice in her mouth. Ron breathed out a sarcastic chuckle and flicked a left-over crumb at Harry, bouncing it square off his glasses. Harry nearly fell over in his chair in surprise.

Hermione smiled. It was comforting to see the old gang, just as playful with each other as ever. "Actually, I have seen him play." Hermione set a hand over Ron's and added proudly, "He was terrific—the best player out there."

Ginny and Harry eyed each other, agreeing silently to their mutual confusion, before Harry shook his head. "When did you see him play? I thought you've been away nearly all these years."

She was about to explain, a soft blush flushing over her cheeks, when Ron answered for her. "She was with him." His cheerful, playful tone had dropped completely and his eyes fell onto the table as he picked at a small crack in the wood's grain. "Malfoy…she was with Malfoy."

Her blush deepened and Harry and Ginny couldn't think of what to say. "Oh," Harry croaked uncomfortably. "Well, he's brilliant then, isn't he?" Harry asked but quickly realized how easily she could misunderstand his meaning. "Ron, I mean. His playing, it's brilliant." Even he could sense how much more awkward he was making the discussion. He didn't need Ginny to nudge him to let him know, but she did anyway, quieting him down before he could say anything else.

"Yeah," Hermione agreed softly. "Brilliant, Ron."

Ron was still looking down at the table. Suddenly, his head lifted and he turned to Hermione. "Why were you even with him? I don't get it."

"Ron…I don't want to talk abou—," Hermione groaned.

"Well I do." He insisted. Harry and Ginny, though still sitting silently across the table, didn't make any attempt at interrupting. _'They're probably just as curious…'_ Hermione thought. Ron shook his head. "I mean, Malfoy? Really? Why him?"

Hermione began to brush him off again, but when he asked her again, she could tell he wasn't budging until he got an answer. She shrugged, still feeling slightly defensive, and answered. "I don't know why it was him. He just made me an offer and I accepted. That's all."

"An offer?" Harry asked, leaning his elbows on the table as he pulled himself closer subconsciously.

She couldn't bring herself to tell them about her anxiety, how he was helping her cope, so she skipped over that part of their agreement entirely. With another dismissing shrug, she replied, "He was helping me find my wand. There's nothing more to it. No big death eater secret recruitment or anything." She could tell by their expressions that that's what they had expected. It was slightly insulting, for them to assume she would ever even consider the notion of joining up with the death eaters, but this was Lucius Malfoy she had been spending time with after all.

Ron scrunched his face and glanced down at the pocket that her wand was tucked away in. It wasn't visible, but he knew it was there. After their years in Hogwarts together, fighting off Voldemort and his goons so many times, it became second nature to simply know where they chose to keep their wands, how they drew it nearly every time, and even to one degree or another, how they each had their own unique dueling styles. "You lost your wand? What have you been using all this time?"

Hermione pulled it out from her pocket and set it on the table in front of her. It was clear then, as they all took a closer look at it, that this wand wasn't actually her wand. "Well, that's the thing. I didn't have a wand all this time. I mean, when I was living with my parents, I had it of course, but nearly as soon as I came back here, I lost it." She decided to skip over the part about _how_ she had actually lost it. No doubt Ron didn't want to discuss that night any more than she did. "I only got this one recently but before then, I was just wandless." She sighed. "It was horrible. I couldn't do anything myself, and I didn't want to go back home without it." They were staring at her. She smiled an uneasy smile and finished. "So he agreed to help me find my wand."

Harry nodded, sitting silently next to Ginny, but Ron was the one to ask what they were all thinking. "And what, exactly, did he get in return?"

His tone said it all, and Hermione refused to allow them to think it for a second longer. "Ronald Weasley! I don't know what you think I am, but I am **not** some prostitute!" She pushed her palms against his shoulder roughly and crossed her arms over her chest proudly. "He got exactly what you saw." There was a folded Daily Prophet lying further down the table where Mr. Weasley typically sat and Hermione pointed at it. "Publicity. He needed a muggle-born to pal around with, for appearances, and I just so happen to be a muggle-born witch."

"Because of his probation," Harry added and Hermione nodded. Harry leaned back in his chair. "You know that could really mess things up with the rehabilitation program. He could get his probation time shortened, based on good behavior, or even gain a better standing with the ministry."

"I know." Hermione agreed. "That's what he wanted. Why else would he want to be seen so much with someone like me? For fun?" She laughed. "Yeah, that makes sense. Lucius Malfoy, the snobbiest of the elite purebloods, wanting to make _friends_ with me." She laughed again, along with an uncomfortable chuckle from Ginny. "Of course it was because of his probation!"

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><p>It had been a very long night. Mimbi was busy trying to quickly clean up the mess that was the entire front section of the manor. The entrance way, the parlor, as well as the adjacent corridors were all completely trashed, littered with pieces of shattered vases, broken picture frames, and anything else Malfoy's visitors had gotten their hands on. The loyal house elf was just barely outside the large sitting room, knelt down on her hands and knobby knees, trying to scrub what was left of a bottle of wine from the corridor's formerly pristine walls. Her head jolted up as she heard the door slam shut. Heavy footsteps followed, making their way down the corridor towards her, causing her to immediately return back to the stained wall, scrubbing twice as fast.<p>

The footsteps got closer and closer until Lucius rounded the corner and stopped as he saw his house elf. She knew better than to look at him, in the current state he was in, but her complete obviousness of it made him feel even more belittled. He took in a deep breath. "I want this place back in order by the time I return." Taking one last, long look around the destroyed halls, Malfoy reached up and touched his lip. It stung as his finger met with the split flesh of his bottom lip, causing him to wince. Instinctively, he ran his tongue over the split and tasted the distinct, familiar flavors of iron and rust. Taking in another disappointed breath, the wizard brushed the back of his hand across his mouth and chin, wiping away the trickle of blood that was beginning to dry on his porcelain skin. "And don't let anyone else inside."

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><p>It had taken him half an hour longer to realize the only logical place she could be that Mimbi hadn't checked, was the Weasley's home, and then another twenty minutes to straighten his appearance and get there. In the darkness of the night, he stalked towards the home, marched up the steps, and struck the door three times with the side of his fist. There was a series of noises inside for a moment before he saw a light beside the door flicker on, illuminating his face. Another row of sounds came from behind the door, but still it remained shut. He was growing impatient and brought his fist back up to the door a few more times before it finally opened. Arthur Weasley stood, dressed in his pajamas, with his wand firmly in hand. "Lucius," he said with a disapproving shake of his head. The long tail of his sleeping cap flopped from side to side with the movement. "It's nearly three in the morning. Surely this could have at least waited until the sun came up."<p>

"I'm afraid not." Lucius replied carelessly, glancing over Arthur's shoulder just as the rest of the house's occupants clambered down the stairs, also in their sleeping garments. Hermione was the last to step down into his view. Lucius pointed at her. "I'd like a word."

Mr. Weasley crossed his arms over his chest and began to reply. "You'll have to come back at a more decent hour, Malfoy. This is completely inappropriate."

Lucius looked back at the man he used to work at the ministry with and pulled his lips back into a disgusted sneer. "I'm not interested in you, Weasley." Disregarding Arthur again, he stared back at Hermione and repeated, "A word?" His eyes trailed over the rest of them crowded just beyond the doorway and he added, "In private."

When neither Arthur nor Hermione spoke, Molly Weasley stepped forward and addressed him directly. "It's the middle of the night, Lucius. This'll have to wait until the mor—." She began to close the door, scooting her husband out of the way but just as the door passed over his view into the house, Lucius pushed it back open with his palm flat against its surface.

Arthur raised his wand out of reflex, stepping forward to block the doorway more easily. Even Molly had drawn her wand, along with Harry and Ron gripping theirs tightly by their sides. "I think it's time you leave." His wand was trained on Malfoy's face, acting as the only divide between the two men.

Releasing his hand from the door, Lucius ignored the wand pointed directly at him and tried one more time. "Miss Granger, I've asked nicely."

To everyone's surprise, Hermione took the final steps down the last few stairs. Ron grabbed at her arm. "'Mione!"

She pulled out of his loose grip and mumbled over her shoulder, "I'll be right back inside, Ron." As she approached the door, Arthur and Molly parted uncertainly, Mr. Weasley's wand slowly lowering back down to a more polite level. Hermione stood in the doorway in front of Malfoy. "What do you want? It's late." She blinked through tired eyes, obviously not amused with whatever it was he was trying to do by showing up at the burrow.

Lucius lowered his voice. "I need to speak with you, in private." He glanced past her at the crowd of red-heads that was still watching them.

Hermione groaned quietly and asked mockingly, "What's the magic word?"

His eyes traced back to the Weasleys and Harry before falling back on her. She hadn't moved. She was playing with him, in front of everyone, insulting him by making him beg. He clenched his jaw shut and eyed her silently. When she didn't say anything, but instead simply raised her eyebrow to show she was waiting for an answer, Lucius pushed out a humiliated breath through his nostrils. "_Please._" He forced it out, so foreign on his tongue that it tasted bitter.

Hermione grinned, her back still facing her friends inside the home, and stepped forward onto the porch with Lucius. "This better be important," she warned.

"'Mione! Get back inside. There's a protective charm over the house. He can't come in." Ron had pushed past the rest of his family as soon as Hermione moved towards Malfoy. His voice had a sense of panic laced over his words, but he couldn't stop glaring at the blonde wizard. "He's a prick and you know it. Just tell him to take a hike."

"Ron, it's fine. I'll just be right outside. You can watch me from here if it'll make you feel better." Hermione tried to calm him down.

As soon as she followed Lucius down the steps of the Weasley's front porch, Ron yelled, "If you lay a hand on her, Malfoy, you're a dead man!" Almost immediately after hearing Ron's threat, Lucius casually draped his arm behind Hermione, resting his hand on her shoulder intentionally. Ron was furious. If it weren't for his father and mother holding him back, he would have burst through the doorway and tackled the arrogant pureblood wizard, but he couldn't get past Mr. Weasley's outstretched arms.

Hermione thought she could hear Arthur tell him to calm down, that she was a 'big girl' and it made her smile that at least someone had faith in her abilities to protect herself. They continued walking away from the house and Lucius let his arm drop off her shoulders. "I'd like to join the Order."

She could have sworn she didn't hear him correctly. Coming to a haul in the middle of the Weasley's front yard, Hermione stared at him. "What?"

Lucius explained. "You said I should join the Order. I've thought it over and you're right. It's the best option for me."

Hermione shook her head and pointed back at the house. "Did you not just see what happened back there? You could have at least talked with me about this."

"I thought that's what I'm doing right now." Malfoy answered, faking an innocence Hermione knew he would never possess.

Shaking her head at him again, Hermione sighed. "I meant before this. It could have worked, if you were to meet with them in a better way. During the day! Not in the dead of night with a fight nearly breaking out!"

Lucius repeated. "You said it was possible. Are you telling me now that it's not?" She rolled her eyes away from him with a frustrated groan. "I came here now because I need to have an answer. If I can't be guaranteed safety, then I need to make alternate arrangements as soon as possible."

Hermione looked back at the Weasleys and Harry, still staring at them from the front door. She dragged her eyes back over to Lucius and shook her head with uncertainty. "I'd need time to bring this up with them, discuss it, and try to get them to agree. I can't give you an answer tonight. I'm sorry."

It wasn't the answer he was hoping for. "You _said_ it was possible." He growled back bitterly.

"Just give me a little time and I'll see what I can do. You know, you're not making it any easier by barging over here this time of night." She scolded him before bringing her voice down to just above a whisper. "What made you change your mind?"

"It doesn't matter." Lucius dismissed her immediately. Obviously what the Weasley clan thought of him didn't rank high up on his list of things to care about. "Just let me know what I need to do so we can move this along. The sooner the better." Hermione rolled her eyes. It would be much harder than how he was making it sound. Lucius asked, "Would tomorrow be a better time? You can talk to them and we'll all have a sit-down in the morning."

"No!" Hermione rejected the idea loudly before she remembered they had an audience and quieted her voice down to a hiss. "You shouldn't even be here. I thought everything was done between us. I have a wand and you've gotten whatever good image you needed for the ministry. What more could you possibly need?"

As she spoke, his brows slowly pressed together, pulling his heavy features to the center of his face, distressed. With an elongated glance at the Weasley home behind Hermione, Lucius forced his answer out uncomfortably. "I've exhausted my resources, my reputation as a loyalist…" He sighed and shook his head briefly with a frustrated frown. "I can only hold off these _people_ for so long, before they stop asking altogether and resort to other techniques."

Hermione hesitated, not wanting to think of what exactly he was saying. Her eyes squinted at him as she folded her arms casually over her chest. "That's not my problem, Malfoy."

His gasp was nearly audible. It wasn't the response he had expected from her, a Gryffindor, a third of the famous 'Golden Trio'. The creases of his forehead deepened. "I'm not asking you because I want to, Miss Granger. I'm asking you because you're my only way in." He motioned towards the house along with the group of people still watching them from inside. "If I don't join the Order soon, I really don't see myself having any other option than the obvious one."

"That option being…" Hermione spoke slowly, carefully. "That you pick the wrong side, again." Although not entirely satisfied with her wording, Lucius chose to silently nod. The witch in front of him chewed at the inside of her cheek as she mulled over everything in her head. The last thing she wanted was to bring up the topic of ex-death eaters with the Weasleys again, since they took to the conversation so wonderfully previously. "You're already in the ministry's rehabilitation program. Why can't you just ask them to help you?"

Malfoy shook his head. "I've told you, I wouldn't be asking you if it wasn't necessary." As the stress of the conversation began to build inside him, Lucius rubbed his right temple before pulling his fingers loosely over the top of his head, through his long blonde hair. "I've asked around and all I keep hearing is that the ministry will accept my word that I'll support them in any future conflicts, but the most protection I can get from them is what I already have now." Subconsciously, his tongue ran over his bottom lip where he had magically healed his recent injury. It looked perfectly normal now. He dismissed his remark with another shake of his head and added, "Which might as well not even exist at all. The Ministry hasn't provided any sense of security, least of all the amount I now require."

"Well, death eaters don't exactly rank top priority on their list," Hermione shot back, her arms still pressed defensively across her front.

"Exactly!" Lucius exclaimed. Pointing back at the Weasley's, he repeated himself. "That's why I need the Order specifically. They work for the Ministry, but they're not the Ministry."

Hermione stopped him, holding up her hand, and corrected him. "We don't work for the Ministry. We work _with_ the Ministry when it's beneficial, but the Order is an independent group devoted to protecting people and controlling dark wizards. If we worked for the Ministry, and the Ministry was infiltrated by Voldemort's morons, then how did we come out on top?"

"Alright, I misspoke." Lucius admitted and rephrased. "The Ministry won't help me, which is why I've come to the Order, via you."

One more glance over his face and Hermione looked away. "I can't guarantee anything, Malfoy. All I can do is bring it up, but I'm warning you now. Every time I've even begun to mention your lot to any of them, it's started more trouble than it was even worth. I wouldn't hold your breath."

"But you'll ask them?"

"I'm saying you need to keep looking for other options," Hermione replied harshly. Even in the darkness of the night, she was sure she could see the outline of a slim smile pressed over his lips. She added softly, "But I'll talk to them."

* * *

><p>"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron exclaimed loudly before Hermione had even fully reached the front steps. Lucius had vanished seconds earlier with the familiar pop of apparation but Ron's eyes kept darting between Hermione and the spot where they had been standing. "Coming over here like that! The nerve of him! It's not enough that he's had you locked away all this time, but now showing up like this?!"<p>

"I was never locked anywhere, Ronald." Hermione corrected him, her voice showing signs of her exhaustion from the early morning dramatics already. They were all staring at her, some more gawking than anything, but the person she needed to talk with the most was already heading back up the stairs to bed. "Harry!" Pushing past the doorway and the cluttered hallway to the stairs, Hermione caught up with him so they could walk up together. "Could I talk to you?"

He looked just as tired as the rest of them. "Can it wait until morning? I've only been asleep an hour before…" he paused and shrugged nonchalantly towards the front door in general. "Before all of that."

It made her feel bad, seeing how red the rings around his eyes were, not to mention the overall hoarse tone to his voice from lack of sleep. "You've had your hands full at the Ministry." She stated. Harry didn't need to nod to let her know it was his workload that was keeping him awake most nights. "I'm here to listen, you know. If you need someone to bounce ideas off of, another set of eyes to look over paperwork, whatever you need. You've always got me." She pressed her lips into a sweet smile.

A pained look crossed over Harry's face. "Actually, I can't." He looked embarrassed. "It's nothing personal and I really do appreciate the offer, but we're playing things pretty close to the chest now-a-days. You know, after Voldemort and everything."

Hermione looked down, dismissed. He had always come to her first when he needed help. They worked as a team, all three of them with the Order. She was happy and able to assist in any way she could, but now that she wasn't needed, it felt like a cold slap to her cheek. "Of course." Hermione nodded defensively. "That's understandable." They continued up the stairs until they reached the first landing, where they were meant to separate. If Harry was so secretive around someone as close to him as Hermione, what sort of odds did she have trying to convince him to let Lucius on their side? "Tomorrow then."

Harry nodded from under heavy lids. "Tomorrow. Good night, Hermione."

"Good night, Harry."

* * *

><p>Morning came sooner than any of them had wanted it to. The house was quieter than usual as all its occupants began to roll out of bed, still looking just as tired as they had appeared to be hours earlier. It was hard enough for Hermione to get Ron to stop asking question after question, and just let her go back to sleep, but when she did finally get some peace, her own thoughts wouldn't leave her alone. Did she even want Lucius with them? It only seemed fair. He took her in when she was in need, despite having his own reasons already planned out, but he could have just as easily left her on the street. But she had done her time with him, paraded around in front of the Daily Prophet's cameras and paid her dues without question. Hermione laid flat on her back in bed, staring up at the ceiling. She had barely slept, her mind racing with what was the right decision and what was the easy one. Through all the convincing she tried to do with herself, proving that she didn't owe him anything, one thought wouldn't escape her. <em>'Then why does it feel wrong to refuse to help him now?'<em>

A groan next to her meant it must have been getting later in the morning. Ron rolled over, draping an arm loosely over her waist. "'Mione," he breathed out with a yawn. "What time is it?"

"I don't know. I just woke up." Lie number one. The floorboards just outside the door to the bedroom creaked and Hermione knew it must have been Mrs. Weasley. No one else would be awake so early except her. "Stay in bed. It's still early. I was just going to go help your mum set up breakfast." Lie number two.

She sat up in the bed and dragged her feet out from under the covers. Ron reached for her hand and squeezed it gently, sweetly. "Love you, 'Mione."

Hermione paused, looking down at him. His eyes were still closed, most likely still overcome with sleepiness, but his lips lifted peacefully into a smile. Hermione squeezed his hand back. "Love you too." Though she would never admit it, somewhere deep in the realms of her subconscious, Hermione silently continued counting. _Three._ "Go back to sleep. I'll call you down when it gets late." He squeezed her hand one more time and Hermione had to slip it away. She did love him. She really, truly did, but with other things weighing heavy on her mind right now, it felt unbalanced.

As she stepped downstairs, sure enough, Mrs. Weasley was already busy in the kitchen. Two pans were magically charmed as its contents began to cook steadily on their own. Mr. Weasley must have come down not long before Hermione because as he sat at the end of the long wooden table, he was only on the first page of his morning paper. "Good morning, Hermione. Slept well?" Hermione nodded and pulled out a chair further down the table. Mrs. Weasley smiled at her over her shoulder before setting down a plate of toast between her husband and the young witch. Mr. Weasley reached over and grabbed a slice. Hermione followed suit. "This morning was interesting," he offered.

Hermione knew he wouldn't ignore what happened with Malfoy last night. He wasn't the type to pretend to forget something like that. Blunt. Hermione nodded again. "I'm sorry he came here. It was inappropriate."

Slowly, Arthur nodded, chewing the piece of toast he was working on. "That it was. But you didn't seem to be expecting his visit." In other words, he wasn't holding her to blame. Hermione silently let out a relieved sigh. "It did seem awfully important that he spoke to you when he did. I'd hope nothing was wrong." If he had said it in any other tone, it would have seemed like genuine concern, but given the history between Mr. Weasley and Malfoy, along with the questioning inflection of his voice, Hermione knew he lost no sleep over anything regarding the Malfoy family.

Hermione hesitated. This could be the opening she had been waiting for; the perfect opportunity to bring up the topic of having Lucius join the Order. "Actually…" She began but the look on Mr. Weasley's face made her stop short. He was watching her with interest, a real interest in what she was about to say. As she glanced around the room, this all belonged to him. It was his kitchen, his family, his home, and although he was a key part of the Order, with his house being one of the Order's safe houses, it was still his. Asking a man as good and honest and true as Mr. Weasley to give all that up for the sake of keeping an ex-death eater safe was asking too much. Hermione changed directions. "Actually, everything's fine. He thought I had left something behind and wanted to return it, but it turned out not to be mine." She took a bite of her toast and swallowed, offering a smile. "Looks like he came all the way out her for nothing."

Mr. Weasley eyed her carefully. She knew exactly what he was thinking. He didn't believe her. Why should he? It was the most ridiculous thing she could have possibly thought to say, but she had never been good at lying, especially at coming up with a bogus story so quickly. "What was it?"

"Pardon?"

"The thing he thought you forgot," Arthur clarified. "What was it?" He was testing her and she knew it. If she couldn't answer quickly enough, he would know for sure that she was lying to him, but if she answered without enough hesitation, it might seem overly rehearsed.

"Oh." Hermione replied, trying to keep her voice at a calm, even level. "A book." Of course, it was the first thing that popped in her head. Luckily, it was also an extremely logical answer. She was almost never seen without some sort of book, whether it be magically shrunken down to fit in her pocket or simply carried around underneath her arm. Mr. Weasley watched her for another few seconds before nodding. _'That'll do for now,' _Hermione assured herself, satisfied with her response, and finished her toast.

Mrs. Weasley glanced over her shoulder at Hermione, still keeping an eye on what was busy cooking away on the stove. "Hermione dear, will you go get the rest of those sleepyheads down here? Not much longer and breakfast is going to get cold."

Hermione nodded and stood from the table. She started up the stairs before spotting Harry. He was fully dressed in his work attire and although looked slightly less tired, he still could have done with a full night's rest. "You're going into work today? It's the weekend." Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged as he quietly shut the bedroom door. Ginny was most likely still sleeping inside. "There's been a few more incidents. It'll take at least half of today to clean it up and sort everything out, then most of tomorrow just to get the paperwork done and filed properly." He let out a sigh.

"An incident?" Hermione repeated. "I hadn't realized there had been any prior incidents. Was anyone hurt?" The word 'incident' could fall under numerous different categories. It could be an actual Ministry incident, in which something happened at work, regarding business, and nothing actually dangerous or threatening happened, or it could be an _incident_. Someone slipping up and sending out the wrong set of owls to the wrong recipients would be a work related incident, but Harry wouldn't be called in for something as simple as that. No, an _incident_ was much more serious. Break-ins were _incidents_, attacks were _incidents_, and Voldemort was an _incident_. The word alone made Hermione unsettled.

Again, that pained look reached his face. "Hermione, I—I can't really…" He was trying so hard not to hurt her feelings.

She nodded. "It's okay. I understand." She may have understood, but that didn't make her feel any better about being kept in the dark.

Harry pulled up the sleeve on his left arm and glanced at his watch. "But hey, I'm not running late or anything. Did you want to talk now?" Hermione blinked at him. _'Talk?' _she thought. Harry shrugged again. "Last night, you said you needed to talk about something. What is it?"

"Oh, it was nothing." Hermione answered, calmer than when she had spoken with Mr. Weasley earlier. "I must have been tired. I can't even remember what it was," she laughed. He stepped aside, letting her go down the stairs first, but Hermione motioned for him to go. "I need to go wake up everyone, but Mrs. Weasley's already got breakfast ready if you want to go ahead. I'll be right down." Harry nodded and descended the stairs without her. Alone, Hermione scolded herself for not bringing it up with Harry. Mr. Weasley was one thing. It was his home that he would be allowing Lucius into, but surely Harry would be easier to talk to. So then why couldn't she bring herself to just ask him? It would have to wait until a better time.

* * *

><p>Mr. Weasley didn't have to go into work, but he did go with his wife and Ginny for some last minute wedding items. Naturally, Fleur went as well; she had an eye for anything involving fashion and style. Once Ron finally drag himself out of bed, Fred and Bill followed closely behind. "We're going to go to the Quidditch pitch," Ron informed her. "Do you want to come? I can show you around. There's no practice today since it's the weekend, so you'll have the whole stadium to yourself." He was beaming, so proud that he had finally accomplished being a pro-Quidditch player. It made him seem even sweeter, so enthusiastic about the sport he loved so much.<p>

Hermione smiled at him from the kitchen table. "That sounds great, but I was planning on heading to the bookstore. You'll have to show me around before your next practice." She tried to mimic the same enthusiasm he had shown, but came up short. Ron gave her a peck on the cheek before he and his brothers left, brooms in their hands.

The Weasley's home seemed so odd with no one inside of it. It was almost uncomfortable to be the only one left at home on such a beautiful day. It didn't take long for Hermione to pack up her bag and head for the shops. Being a weekend day, Diagon Alley was packed full of witches and wizards, goblins and even a couple half-giants. Luckily, it was closer to noon than any other time of day, which meant most of the shops selling anything other than food weren't quite as crowded, especially the book shop. As she stepped through the door, hearing the distinct ring of the bell that hung overhead, she breathed in deep. The smell of fresh parchment had always been one of her favorites, especially when the pages were bound together and wrapped neatly beneath a leather cover. Roaming idly between the aisles, Hermione hadn't noticed when the shop keeper spotted her. "Ah, Miss Granger!" He called from behind the large metal register. Hermione smiled as he recognized her by name. He was fumbling behind the counter for something before popping back up with a book in his hands. "Perfect timing, you have! Your order's just arrived this morning. Beautiful condition, might I add."

Hermione peered around the bookcase she had been thumbing over to get a better look at what he was holding. It didn't look familiar. She abandoned the bookshelf and stepped toward the counter. The title didn't sound familiar either. "I don't recall ordering anything."

"Hmm," the shop keeper pondered, gazing down at the book before flipping open an enormous book of records and transactions sitting further down the counter. He ran his finger down a few pages before backtracking to an entry he found useful. "Ah-ha! There it is." He was pointing at an order jotted down in the middle of the page. "Hermione Granger, quantity - one, rush delivered from an old book shop over in Ireland." He went back to the book Hermione had supposedly ordered and read the title aloud. "_Wandless Wizards and their Triumphs_. It was actually fairly hard to find, believe it or not. You'd think with a topic like that, everyone would want a copy."

Glancing down at the book between them, Hermione asked. "When was this order placed?"

The bookkeeper went back to his records and replied a moment later, "Just about two weeks ago. Why? Have you had a change of heart? I'd be more than happy to add this one to my own personal library if you don't want it anymore."

Hermione frowned. "Does it say who placed the order exactly?"

Again, he thumbed over the order history before coming up with the name she had expected. "Lucius Malfoy." He double checked the page and shook his head. "Oh my, have we made a mix up? I was sure the order was meant for you. Your name's right here under the recipient column." He pressed his index finger against the parchment and slid the record book down the counter so Hermione could see for herself.

She didn't need to read it. She knew he was right, but she didn't want the book. "I must have forgotten about the order," she fibbed. "But as you've said, I've had a bit of a change of heart. Thank you for holding it for me, but you're more than welcomed to keep it for yourself." The shopkeeper happily nodded and wrapped the book back up, placing it underneath the counter for safe keeping. The rest of her time spent in the bookshop felt awkward. She was no longer looking around at the books on the shelves, but wondering when exactly the order had been placed. Two weeks ago she was still with Malfoy in the Manor, but she couldn't place anything else. It must have been after they started looking for her wand; that was ages ago, but was it before or after they had gone to the bar together, with her in disguise as Narcissa Malfoy? If the order was place afterwards, was this Malfoy's way of apologizing for stealing that kiss from her? Hermione held a few books as she finished walking between the tall cases and paid for her purchases.

Shrinking the books down to a more manageable size, Hermione dropped them in her handbag and walked down the street to a neighboring sweets shop. Just like any typical weekend, it was filled to the brim with children. She decided to pass up the bag of chocolate frogs she had been eyeing through the window and kept walking to a small café instead. Surely the mid-day rush would have died down by now and she would manage to find a table without having to wait too long. After getting a cup of tea and settling down at her table by the window, Hermione pulled one of her new books from her bag and enlarged it to full size so she could flip through its pages as she sat.

Half an hour past and though her tea had gone cold, most of it was gone. The book she was reading was about one man's journey through life from before he had been turned into a werewolf, and then after, and the struggles that came with the curse. It reminded her of Remus and made her wonder if his life had been similar to the author's or if he had perhaps had it easier because of the support of his friends. She was just turning to the next chapter when a flash of platinum blonde hair caught her eye just outside the window. He was walking past the coffeehouse when he too saw her through the glass and doubled back to the door. Hermione closed her book and groaned. "Great…"

Lucius strode over to her table and without asking, pulling out the chair across from her and sat down. "No wonder no one was home. You're here."

"Home?" Hermione questioned, pressing her brows down as she realized what he meant. "You need to stop showing up at the Weasleys! It's not helping."

He leaned in, pressing his elbows against the small table's surface. "Does that mean you've talked to them?" As Hermione drew back, looking down with hesitation, Malfoy's hopeful smile faded. "You didn't talk to them," he corrected himself. Pushing himself back into his chair, he crossed his arms over his chest, obviously disappointed and a little frustrated with his realization.

Hermione chose a defensive position. "It just wasn't the right timing. I was going to talk to Harry, but he had to rush off to the Ministry because of all the incidents, so I couldn't bring it up with him, and then I was going to try Mr. Weasley but—,"

Lucius drew his attention back to her words, uncrossing his arms and replacing them on the table again. "Incidents? You know what happened? I was told nothing would be publicized for at least another month, possibly more."

He was staring at her, seemingly astonished that someone with no position within the Ministry would get such a high security clearance in regards information. It would have made her blush, had she actually had any information. Instead, she blushed because for the ump-teenth time today, she would have to try her hand at lying, a skill she had never fully mastered, unlike her best Slytherin counterparts. She shrugged casually. "Of course. I am a part of the Order after all." Hermione lifted her chin, trying her best to appear as confident in what she was saying as she could.

Obviously, Lucius bought her act. Leaning back against his chair again, he ran a hand over her hair and dropped his voice down low, just above a whisper. "I didn't have any part in any of it." Confused, Hermione chose to nod. It was a fairly neutral response and it seemed to work, as he went on. "It must have happened while I was with you this morning. I had come directly from the Manor, no side trips." Again, she nodded, though what exactly he was confessing to not being a part of, she had not the slightest idea. "In fact, if I had known about any of it at all, I want you to know that I would have warned you."

This sparked her interest and no matter how much she regretted it, she couldn't help it when the question left her lips. "Warned me?" If she had been in any danger, Harry wouldn't have hesitated to tell her everything when he spoke with her that morning, but here Lucius was, talking of warnings and nearly apologizing for something he hadn't even fully explained.

"Of course, so you could have warned your parents." His face was blank as he tried to work out why he had to even explain such a simple thing to her, unless… The realization that he had said too much washed over him as a small hiss escaped from his mouth. "Nobody's told you." He closed his eyes at the statement.

"Told me what?" Her false cover vanished as soon as he mentioned her parents. A panic set in as all the possibilities began to rush into her. They were dead. They were kidnapped. They were being tortured right this moment and no one knew where they were. "Tell me what happened!" Her loud demand grabbed the attention of nearly the entire café occupants as her voice rose unexpectedly.

Feeling the eyes on them both, Malfoy forced out a smile at a few nearby witches and wizards sitting at their small coffee tables, trying to silently assure them that everything was perfectly fine. When a good chunk of them stopped staring at them, Malfoy hissed, "Not here." He grabbed her hand from across their table and picked up the book she had been reading. After throwing a healthy handful of galleons and sickles on the table, he escorted her out of the coffeehouse. "I don't see why they wouldn't have told you…" he mumbled under his breath, more so to himself than to her. "Take my hand."

Hermione looked down at his extended hand. "Where are we going?"

His expression dropped, leaving nothing but a serious demeanor with a small amount of pity mixed in. It wasn't at all what Hermione wanted to see. If an ex-death eater was pitying her, she couldn't even begin to hope for a good outcome. Swallowing down hard, Hermione took his hand in hers and they apparated out of Diagon Alley together.

It took a moment for her to get her bearings, but when she did finally start to recognize where he had taken her, she set out in a sprint to a nearby house. The whole street was in ruins, every house damaged in some sort of way with varying levels of destruction. A car had been obviously crushed by some enormous force, but was still sitting neatly in the driveway where she was sure it had most likely always sat. Some houses had chunks of the roof ripped away, leaving the rooms inside to weather the harsh environments bare, while others seemed to be hit from the front, back, or sides. Lucius watched as Hermione ran up to the front door of one of the homes, trying the knob roughly but finding it locked. Immediately, she started pounding on the door. "Mum! Dad! Oh, no! No!" She tried the knob again, kicking at the stiff wooden door with all her might.

Cautiously, Malfoy stepped onto the small porch and offered under his breath, "You're a witch, Miss Granger. Use your wand."

Almost insulted by his bluntness, Hermione blushed a deep red, but pulled out her wand to unlock the door. With it open, she burst inside, calling out again. "Mum! Dad! Please, answer me!"

She was running from room to room before Malfoy finally stopped her. "They're not here."

"No!" She shouted, charging at him. "Don't you dare tell me that! You're a liar!" She was furious. Between still looking around for any signs of her parents and glaring at Lucius, the redness on her cheeks had shifted over the rest of her face as her emotions got the best of her.

"They're not dead." Lucius exclaimed, not quite as loud as her shouts but loud enough for her to hear him from the room she had just burst into. A second passed before she stepped back into the living room with him. "Well, at least I didn't see the name 'Granger' on the list of those lost. In the muggle newspaper of course. The Daily Prophet hasn't been informed, and most likely won't be. As I mentioned before, the Ministry has made a serious effort in keeping any publicity as far away from here as possible." As much as he tried to deny it, the way her face relaxed and she nearly sighed in relief at his words made him happier than seeing her so upset. It made him wonder even more why he had to be the first person to tell her, and not her precious Order. Lucius ignored his feelings and curiosity, instead shrugging towards a row of broken family pictures lying scattered on the floor beside the small table they had most likely been originally sitting on top of. "I'd imagine your parents are staying with relatives. This area's been evacuated until each house is deemed safe to live in."

Hermione knelt down and brushed the bits of broken glass off of each picture, leaving the damaged frames on the floor at her feet. One by one, she dusted them off and slid them into her pocket. When she got to the last one, she paused to look at it. It was a picture of her and her parents at a muggle amusement park when she was only nine years old. They were all wearing these ridiculous hats and she was holding the biggest stuffed animal she had ever seen, but what drew her in was their faces. They were all smiling, so happy, carefree, despite the pieces of broken glass sprinkled all over their images. If it had been a wizard's photograph, perhaps they wouldn't still be smiling, not after having the frame smashed around them. Careful not to fold any creases over their faces, Hermione folded the last picture and dropped it in her pocket for safe keeping. "You said the muggle papers wrote about this. What happened?"

Malfoy hesitated. "Do you mean what the muggle papers are saying happened, or what really happened?" Hermione gave him a warning glance and he knew it didn't matter. He would get to the truth either way. "They're saying it was some freak accident. I believe they declared it an isolated area of earthquake activity, though I believe a different paper chalked it up to a hurricane touching down."

"That doesn't make any sense. Look around. This wasn't an earthquake and it certainly wasn't some random hurricane." Hermione swiveled her arms around at the living room where the structure seemed to be in perfect shape, but the décor was an absolute mess. The smashed pictures were only the beginning. The sofa cushions had been torn into, part of the stuffing inside still hanging from the blades of the ceiling fan. Nearly every window in the bottom floor had been blown outwards, not inwards like you might find with a natural disaster. Any fool could tell nothing in nature had done this, and this was only one of the many houses on this street.

Lucius nodded solemnly. "I've heard of the Ministry taking enough precautions with situations like this, where they'd obliviate any muggle workers who had surveyed the damage, so that all their stories would match up enough for the newspapers and media to believe it. After being evacuated, the only thing left to do is to fix the damage before anyone else can see it and reveal what really happened—to protect the integrity of the wizarding world of course." Hermione couldn't stop looking at the ruined house she used to call home. The Ministry had mastered the art of covering up attacks on muggles after Voldemort had rose to power on more than a few occasions. It was the only thing they really could do to protect themselves from the muggles find out about magic.

"You said you had no idea what they were going to do. How did you even find out about this? Surely the Ministry didn't bring it up in friendly morning conversation." No, he must have known from an outside source, an old death eater buddy, most likely bragging about their most recent attack against muggles.

He took in a deep breath. "Before you saw me early this morning, at the Weasley's home, I was approached." With a pause, Lucius tried to think of how to best explain the exact position he had been put in without appearing weak. It was difficult. He rubbed the tip of his index finger just above his right eyebrow and frowned as he began. "It wasn't the first time they've come to me, asking for my support, my loyalty…" With one fluid motion, he shifted his hand away from his eyebrow and brought it up further to run his fingers through his hair nervously. "Remember when I told you sooner or later, they would stop asking? They did this," Lucius motioned around at the damaged muggle home. "To my home, well, part of my home. I had told them I needed more time with the Ministry, in the rehabilitation program, to gain back the trust I had lost throughout Voldemort's reign. Only then, when I was sure I could be of good use to them, would I agree to join and support them." Remembering the way they had beaten him the night before, Lucius narrowed his eyes and decided to skip over that part. "I've had as much time as I can get…which is why I came to you when I did. I can't stall for much longer without risking my own neck."

Hermione didn't know what to say. He really was caught between a rock and a hard place, and there she was, afraid to even bother to ask if the Order would help keep him safe. He had brought her here now, shown her what Harry and the Ministry had clearly tried to keep from her. A man who would do that can't be entirely as evil as everyone seems to think. But he hadn't actually answered her question. "How did you know about my parents?"

"Well, I didn't. Not them specifically. When they came to my home last night to… _discuss,_ they tried to entice me. Knowing my history, what I had done under Voldemort's orders in the past, they assumed I would want to be apart of this." Again, he waved at the room in general. "An organized, planned attack on an unsuspecting muggle community. They hit this street as well as the rest of the neighborhood." He glanced out the window and added, "I believe half of the next community over also, though this is the only area I, myself, have visited."

Her eyes dropped down to the floor as she did the rough math mentally in her head. This street held somewhere around twenty houses. The neighborhood holds close to nine blocks similar to this one. Twenty houses, times nine blocks means at a bare minimum, 180 dark wizards are now in full support of this new group, the V.R.S., and that's not even including the half of the other neighborhood they most likely attacked. The figures floated around in her head before she realized, that total was only assuming a single wizard was responsible for each house, which wasn't at all likely. There had to be at least two or three wizards per house, bumping the total of dark wizards up to a whopping 360, or even 540! Hermione lifted her eyes from the floor back up to Lucius's face. _'And they're not even done recruiting yet…'_

"I had no idea they would be coming here. Out of all the muggle towns they could have gone to, I never suspected they'd choose this one. Otherwise, I would have warned you." His eyes bore into her and she could tell he wanted nothing more than for her to believe him. He needed her trust and he knew he was close to finally gaining it.

Hermione bit at her bottom lip before making up her mind. "We'll go back to the Weasley's and wait for everyone to come home. Then you can tell them everything you've just told me."

"What?" Lucius burst out. "I'm looking for protection, not an execution. If I tell them that I've been in contact with enemies of the Ministry this whole time, they won't hesitate in sending me straight to Azkaban."

"You can give them information. That'll be your way in."

"What part are you not understanding? I can't have any further contact with any of these people. I'm switching side, taking it up with your team, joining forces with the Order and not looking back. It's the only way I'm going to survive." His cold eyes had come alive as soon as his one last chance out seemed threatened by her so-called plan to get him into the Order.

Hermione lashed back at him. "No, what are **you** not understanding? You're a death eater, Malfoy. You've tortured and slaughtered, created orphans and probably killed a few throughout your service to Voldemort. I know Harry and the rest of the Order. They're not going to take you in just because you need their help, certainly not with your reputation, your history."

He groaned in frustration. He was getting tired of her constantly reminding him of who he was. "I've told you, it's in the past."

"**I** know that, but they don't." Growing just as irritated by his arrogance, thinking everyone would simply drop what they're doing to save his ass, Hermione tried to explain. "They look at you and they only see a murderer, a threat. Just yesterday, Ginny said it would be easier to kill you than it would to take you in on our side. You'd be too much work, to watch constantly, and worry about you slitting our throats while we slept."

Lucius pulled his brows together as his frown deepened. "You really think I'd do that? You've lived with me for how long? I haven't killed you all that time, so why would I do it now?"

He was missing the point. She stepped forward and grabbed him by the shoulders firmly. "Listen to me. It doesn't matter what I believe. All that matters is what you can bring to the Order. What can you offer them that will make them want you? Need you?" She let go of his shoulders and turned away as she stepped into the beaten up kitchen. "Information, a way in, an insider's point of view, connections and contacts that can help the Order penetrate them completely. That's your only way in." As she looked back at him, still standing stiffly in the middle of the living room, Hermione added gently. "If there were any other way, I would have found it."

He breathed out a rigid breath and muttered, "How is playing both sides keeping me safer than just giving in and joining the V.R.S.?"

Hermione hoped she had heard him wrong. _'Was he really considering joining them? Picking the wrong side yet again? He wouldn't survive the losing side of a war twice; he was lucky enough to come out of the last one unscathed.' _She shook her head as she leaned heavily on the countertop in front of her. "I'm going to ignore that you just said that," she warned. "Just give this a try. The worst that can happen is they say no and you're no worse off than where you are now."

"The idea is to go forward, not stay where I am now." Malfoy kicked a piece of rubble by his foot and muttered, "If I hadn't have left my family, I wouldn't even be in this mess."

"How do you know they haven't already found your son and your wife?" Before she could even finish her thought aloud, Lucius gave her a harsh glance. In his mind, his family was still far, far away, as safe as a bumblebee high up in the air, somewhere where no one could touch them. Hermione shrugged and offered a half-hearted apology. "Sorry, but it's true. You haven't heard from them in months and that last owl was as vague as possible. She might as well had written a grocery list and sent it to you." His face grew colder and colder with her every word. She was treading on thin ice by mentioning his family, but it may have been the only thing that could get him to believe her plan was the right one. "I need you to trust me."

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><p><strong><em>ANs: Feedback? Did anyone get surprised by a couple things? :) I hope so. In all honesty, in my head, this fanfic would have been over by now. 20 chapters, I honestly thought that would be enough, but the way this is going, I'm thinking we're just about at the half-way mark here. Plenty more to come! After all, it's got a 'M' rating for a reason, right?<em>**

**_Anyway, let me know what you think in the reviews. If you liked it, let me know, and if you didn't, let me know why. For now, I'm off to go start chapter 21!  
><em>**

**_xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><em>**


	21. Chapter 21

_**Author's Notes: This chapter was so unbelievably hard to write, especially the ending, simply because everyone really NEEDED to stay in character, while still developing and moving forward. But hopefully I managed to do that without messing it up too badly. :P I guess you guys will let me know. Slightly shorter the the previous chapter, but it really is an important chapter for quite a few different reasons, so if you're planning on skipping around a bit, make sure this is one of the chapters you read.**_

_**With all that said, thank you for stopping by to read my fanfic. I really appreciate all the feedback I've gotten so far, and look forward to hearing what you guys think about this new chapter :) Be sure to let me know in the reviews. Enjoy!  
><strong>_

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><p>Chapter 21<p>

By some miracle, the Weasley home was still empty when Hermione and Lucius returned. Unfortunately, Ron wasn't bluffing about the extensive protective charms placed around the actual structure of the house. While Hermione could easily walk inside and out without any problems, Lucius couldn't get past the front door. It was as if there was a second door just beyond the first, made of solid steel, impenetrable. They walked around to the back door, but came to the same disappointing result. "Maybe a window?" Lucius offered, eyeing the small window just above the kitchen sink.

"No," Hermione answered quickly. "This is their home. I'm sure breaking and entering won't help us convince them to trust you at all." Lucius stole another calculated glance at the window before shrugging at her remark. Hermione marched over to the back garden, picking up one of the folding armchairs and began to walk with it around to the front of the house.

Lucius watched her, amused, before aiming his wand at one of the other armchairs and levitating it next to hers. "It's no wonder you lost your wand in the first place. You're always forgetting to use it."

Hermione glared at him as she adjusted her chair so that it sat level on the grass without tilting or rocking. "Just because we can use magic, doesn't mean we should pull our wands out for every little thing." She reminded herself of Mrs. Weasley. The busy mother had scolded Fred and George for the very same thing years ago when they were first allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts. They had driven everyone mad, popping in and out of rooms without warning and setting meaningless charms for no reason other than that they could. Hermione smiled at the old memory and took a seat in her folding lawn chair. "Just sit down and shut up."

Lucius raised an eyebrow at her sudden directness. Dusting off the chair as if it had some infectious disease laced all over it, he sat down next to her. "How long is this going to take?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. Harry is at work so that means he could be there all day, possibly even into the night. He'd be the best person for us to talk with. I'd imagine the first ones to arrive will be Ginny, her parents, and Fleur. They've only gone out shopping for wedding arrangements. That couldn't possibly take too long, could it?"

It took him an extra few seconds to realize she was looking at him for an answer. Baffled by the question, he shook it off smoothly. "I wouldn't know. I wasn't exactly overly involved in our wedding. My wife and sister-in-law handled most of that."

Hermione nodded. She should have known Narcissa would want everything done precisely the way she wanted. A witch like Narcissa, coming from a pureblood family with money, must have had her wedding day planned by the time she was eight years old. After all, their main focus as pureblood witches and wizards seemed to be family and procreation. Hermione brushed the thought away. "I guess we'll both find out together then. I never did have any interest in trying on dresses for hours on end and comparing fabric colors that are nearly identical in every which way."

Though he wasn't entirely sure why she was offering this information to him, it wasn't unpleasant. Some idle chit-chat to pass the time wouldn't prove to be of any harm, especially if they ended up having to wait hours for everyone to show up. "I had the nerve to fall asleep the first time we went shopping for decorations." His words came out overly sarcastic, stressing some imaginary shame that Hermione knew he had none of. "Needless to say, that was the first and only time they had asked me to come wedding shopping with them."

"Well, if I knew it was that easy, I would just pretend to be asleep every time they start discussing table centerpieces or what type of lighting to use." Hermione joked back. _'Yes,'_ she thought. _'Idle chit-chat sounds like a good idea.'_

They bounced around from topic to topic for only half an hour before someone apparated just beyond the boundaries of the Weasleys' front garden. Hermione had expected it to be Ginny, like she had told Lucius, but to her surprise the first to return was Mrs. Weasley and Fleur. It took them only a matter of seconds to catch sight of Hermione and Lucius. They stood from their chairs as Mrs. Weasley and Fleur came to a halt on the walking path leading up to the front door of the small house. They looked confused, as if unsure whether to stay or flee via apparation. Mrs. Weasley's eyes darted from Hermione to Malfoy, before flashing back to Hermione. Neither pair moved except for Hermione, who turned to Lucius to whisper, "This was a mistake."

He whispered back at her under his breath. "I thought I was supposed to be the nervous one." Just as quickly as they had returned, they were gone. Led by Mrs. Weasley, her and Fleur apparated away, leaving Hermione and Lucius to stand alone beside their folding lawn chairs. Sitting back down, Malfoy remarked arrogantly, "Well, that was rude."

"This was a mistake." Hermione repeated, still standing. She could feel the chair's edge against the back of her calves but couldn't bring herself to sit back down. Stepping away to pace anxiously, she spoke. "We shouldn't have done it like this. It was a bad idea. I'm sorry to waste your time, but we need to leave."

She went to grab his arm, possibly in an attempt at side-along apparation, but Malfoy pulled it away roughly. "I'm not going anywhere. I've told you already, I'm out of options."

"You don't understand. This isn't going to work, especially not if we do it like this." Her voice was a mixture between shouting and pleading, as if she couldn't decide whether she was angry that he wouldn't leave, or scared that the Weasleys would come back before they could disappear. "We can go back to the manor and wait until tonight. We'll try again then, when everyone is already here, settled in for the evening. They might be more open if we don't catch them by surprise."

Lucius watched as the flood of emotions crossed over her eyes. She wasn't afraid that their timing was wrong or whatever other excuse she could think up; she was afraid of even trying. The rejection they could easily give her just for bringing him here was enough to change her mind entirely about helping him. This wouldn't do, not if he was still willing to try. "We're not leaving," he stated firmly. "They'll return, and we'll talk to them one by one. It will work because it **needs** to work." She was still standing awkwardly in front of her chair, though she had stopped pacing. "Sit down. It'll seem less hostile and -,"

Before he could finish his thought, another cluster of pops interrupted him. They had come back, quicker than either of them expected, but they weren't alone this time. It had taken them a few minutes, but Mrs. Weasley and Fleur returned with Mr. Weasley and Ginny following closely behind. Lucius remained seated. "Malfoy," Mr. Weasley called to him loudly as he marched down the path to them, holding his wand tightly down by his side.

"Weasley," Malfoy called back flatly.

As Arthur closed the gap between them, Molly, Ginny, and Fleur followed cautiously, their wands also readily available, should it be needed. The red-haired man examined Lucius with one final lasting look before disregarding him entirely. Instead, he turned to Hermione. "We'll talk inside." He started for the door, calling behind him at his daughter. "Ginny, go get Harry and your brothers."

Hermione felt her stomach flop. She hadn't even mentioned why they were there yet, and Mr. Weasley was already calling for backup. This wasn't a good sign and she knew it. "Mr. Weasley, the protective charm. We can't come inside."

He stopped just before the door and looked back at her. "_We_ can come inside." Shooting another glance in Malfoy's direction, he added, "There's a fairly elaborate protective charm set over my home, Malfoy, and until I can sort out why you're here, I have absolutely no inclination to lift it." Arthur looked back at Hermione. "He'll stay outside."

Lucius rolled his eyes and leaned back in his armchair, settling in. _'Leave it to her precious Order to treat me like some stray pup with muddy paws…'_ He glanced judgingly at the house and joked in his head, _'If anything, I'd be tracking dirt out of the house, not in. Filthy old shack…'_

Ginny said something to Fleur before they both disappeared, most likely in search of the rest of the Weasley clan. Hermione looked at Lucius, who nodded towards the front door, before leaving the lawn chairs to go inside. Arthur led the way into the kitchen, followed by Hermione, with Mrs. Weasley closing behind. As if feeling the stillness in the room, they all sat down at the long wooden table, the Weasleys sitting across from Hermione. She began. "This isn't necessary, Mr. Weasley, to keep him outside. He's harmless."

Molly creased her brows into a deep set frown. "_Harmless?_" She breathed out, astonished, before looking at her husband for clarity of what she just heard.

Hermione shook her head. "That was a poor choice of words. I just meant that he's not going to be of any trouble if he were in here instead."

Mr. Weasley had heard enough and made a waving motion with his hand as it rested on the table in front of him. "He's fine out there. That's not what you came here to discuss, is it?"

He had such a sweet, comforting face, along with his wife, that it made a conversation like this even harder. How was she supposed to ask them to open their home to someone who they wouldn't even allow inside for a visit? She chickened out. "I-I think it'd be best if we waited for the rest of the Order." _'For Harry,'_ is what she really meant. He was the only one who she could see possibly accepting the protection of Lucius.

"They'll be here shortly." Mr. Weasley assisted before asking her again. "If we could just get an idea of what he's doing here, then we might be able to approach the situation a little easier."

Hermione tried to map out what she was going to say in her head. It all sounded so wrong, no matter how she tried to phrase it. She started off carefully. "As you know, Mr. Malfoy is in the Ministry's rehabilitation program." They watched her, listening for where she was trying to take the conversation. Hermione swallowed and continued. "He's been doing well, as I'm sure Harry can tell you. Keeping out of trouble, and helping the Ministry whenever he can. But now that he's given up his old ways and wanting to start fresh, he's found that there's no where for him to go to get that new start. He's an asset, an extra wand when its needed, and with his old loyalties completely gone, that leaves room for new loyalties to be formed. Not to mention his experience with dark wizards in particular can provide invaluable information that no one else can offer us."

"Dear," Mrs. Weasley stopped her hesitantly. "What are you saying?" She had been rambling on, trying to chalk Lucius up to nothing less than a good guy, a talented wizard, and someone they would want on their side should another war break out. All the while, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had sat, watching her in doubt.

Hermione breathed out. This wasn't going to work if she couldn't just spit it out and ask them. "The Order…" she started. "He wants to join."

They fell silent, at first staring at Hermione before looking at one another with wary eyes. It was clear this was not what they wanted to hear. Mr. Weasley interlocked his fingers and pulled his hands back into his lap underneath the table. Mrs. Weasley gave a short shake of her head as she stared at her husband in silence. "This…" he began before backtracking over his thoughts. "What you're asking, Hermione…" He shook his head and Hermione knew she shouldn't of even bothered. "We'll need to inform the rest of the Order and get their opinions but this…" He shook his head again.

"I know," Hermione confessed weakly. Somehow she thought if Malfoy had been there at the table, able to speak for himself, things would have went a little smoother. At least then, he might have a chance. Hermione looked down a the table and mumbled, "He's not with them."

"Who?" Mr. Weasley frowned.

Her eyes flickered up to their faces. "The V.R.S." By the looks on their faces, they hadn't expected Hermione to know about this new group of dark wizards, especially not by name. Perhaps if she could convince them that Lucius had been open enough with her to tell her, then maybe they would believe he would be just as honest with the Order in his efforts to help them. She continued. "The Voldemort Retention Strike - he hasn't joined them, but if we don't take him in now, what other option does he have?"

To both Hermione's and Mr. Weasley's surprise, Molly Weasley spoke, suggesting gently, "We lost so many during the last war. We can't afford to turn away an able-bodied wizard, Arthur." Hermione smiled. Who would have thought it would be Mrs. Weasley to agree with Hermione first? The mother of seven, with her kind-hearted smile and always welcoming bear hugs had easily accepted Hermione as one of her own years ago, but after losing her son during the final battle at Hogwarts, Hermione thought she would be the last person to even consider helping Malfoy. She grinned softly again, this time catching Mrs. Weasley's eye. With the return of her own warm smile, Mrs. Weasley added, "A chance is all I'm suggesting, until he proves himself."

Her husband pinched the tip of his chin as he pondered over the possibilities. "If he does join, he's not to stay here. We're packed in here like sardines as it is. There simply isn't enough room." Hermione nodded. She had no intention of him staying with the Weasleys, especially not while Ron and her were sleeping right upstairs every night. She made a mental note to discuss moving into their own home with Ron. Even a small apartment would be fine, but she couldn't picture living in his room for the rest of their lives. How Ginny and Harry managed it all this time was a wonder, then again with Harry working so much, it was most likely just Ginny living with her parents. Harry had become more of a guest, stopping by to eat and sleep before disappearing back to the office. Mr. Weasley took in a deep breath, still unsure of his answer, but gave it anyway. "We still need to see what everyone else has to say, and find him a suitable place to stay if the Manor isn't available to him any longer, but he gets one chance." He held up his index finger and repeated, "One. The moment we have a problem, he's gone." Hermione smiled and nodded in agreement.

A loud bang came from the front garden, followed by what sounded like shouting and spells. Their heads lifted as all three of them bolted up from their seats around the kitchen table. Ginny ran in through the front door, her wand in hand. "Dad, he's attacked Ron!" Mrs. Weasley and Ginny hurried back outside while Arthur looked tentatively at Hermione. They all knew who Ginny was talking about before even setting foot on the front steps.

As they got outside, her eyes darted around wildly. The chairs they had been sitting in were kicked over, one of them folded in on itself in the process. Malfoy stood nearby, locked in a standoff with Harry, both of their wands trained on the other. Across the grass was the group of brothers. Ron was sitting up on the grass, holding his hands under his nose in an attempt to protect his clothes from the blood that was still dripping out of his nostrils. George and Bill knelt beside him, helping him back onto his feet. "_Harmless…_" Arthur sighed as he passed Hermione to go check on his son.

"Would you mind telling Mr. Potter to lower his wand, Miss Granger?" Lucius asked coolly, his own wand still aimed squared at Harry's chest.

"You first." Harry insisted with mock politeness.

Hermione stepped between them, causing them both to draw their arms down and away slightly. "What did you do?" She shouted, facing Malfoy.

Harry answered first. "I apparated back with Ginny and they were shooting at each other. Ron missed the block and got hit in the face by a stunner. He was knocked out cold for a few seconds. Scared us all half to death."

"I was defending myself from that maniac! He should have his wand taken away." Lucius argued.

Ron must have overheard because he started shouting across the grass at him. "You're the bloody lunatic, Malfoy! It was a cheap shot!" His mother stopped him before he could yell anything else, urging him to keep his head straight so she could realign the broken bones of his nose to help slow the bleeding.

Hermione marched towards Malfoy. "Defensive spells! They are named such because they are used to _defend_ yourself." She pointed sharply at Ron, still looking at Lucius. "**That** was not a defensive spell!"

"It is when some idiot is shooting at me." Malfoy snarled at her.

She stepped in closer and at first he thought that she was going to slap him. But she didn't. Instead, she hissed, "You imbecile, I was just about to get you in. They were going to help you."

He pressed his face in closer to hers and repeated, "He was firing at me. What would you have me do?" His eyes narrowed as he bore into her, but even with the growling death eater inches away from her face, Hermione didn't back down. Neither did Lucius.

"Defensive spells." Hermione answered again, colder this time. "You use them to protect yourself until he stops."

Malfoy's lips curled inwards at her suggestion. Did she really expect him to stand there and block spell after irritating spell that this boy surely would have shot at him? "He wasn't going to stop," he muttered.

Hermione inched closer, careful not to graze over the tip of his nose with her own. To her relief, her voice remained steady, harsh, and unwavering. If she aimed to scold him, the last thing she needed was to sound weak. "Then you wait." She shot back immediately, leaving no room for hesitation. "You wait, Lucius, until someone stops him properly."

She had used his name; not his last name, spat out like a rancid glass of bitter milk, but his given name. It caught him off guard. He hissed in a breath through his barely parted lips and pulled back, away from her by a few inches and scanned over her eyes carefully. They were holding onto him, piercing straight through him, and for the first time, he felt as if she was seeing too much of him. She wasn't only looking at his face, his eyes, his lips, cheeks and nose, but deeper than that. Past the flesh and bone until she was hitting him from the inside out. It started in his chest and spread through him like a wave, shuttering down his spine and making him sweat. He could feel his pulse rising the longer she stared at him and he had to stop it. He had to find some way to make it end. Taking in a steady breath, he leaned back in, closer than before, until he was sure he could feel the warm wisps of air escaping past her lips. "Look around you." He growled at her, keeping his voice just barely above a whisper. "Who here would even care if that little shit tried to kill me? They would more likely give him a medal than intervene. Who would bother to stop him?"

He thought for sure that would be enough. She would realize exactly who she was standing there arguing with, and back away. She would look away, either embarrassed by the truth or afraid, and finally give him his space back. No doubt she'd even go running over to her wounded little friend and help heal him up from the big bad death eater's vicious attack. Lucius smirked, waiting for it to happen. But she stay. Though there was a moment of hesitation and a flickering of her eyes away from his, she didn't react the way he had wanted her to. Hermione ran over his question in her head and only one answer kept coming back to her. "I would." She blinked, breaking her stare, and took a step back. "I would care."

Her chest was vibrating, rising and falling so quickly that she felt like she wasn't getting enough oxygen. But she still had control. A momentary slip up, she thought. That's all he had made her do, she hadn't lost her strength entirely. Taking in a deep breath, Hermione glanced down at the wand in his hand. "Put your wand away." She watched as his eyes left hers and fell past her at Harry. "Put it away," she repeated firmly.

Turning around without even waiting for Malfoy to do as he was told, Hermione slipped her own wand into her pocket and walked past Harry towards the small group surrounding Ron. His nose looked to be healed, the bones at least, but the lower portion of his face was still covered in drying blood. "Mr. Weasley, I hope this misunderstanding won't change what we were just discussing."

The father of the Weasley family was standing beside Ron, examining his nose for any damage that still needed to be fixed. As Hermione spoke, he shook his head in disbelief. "If this was a misunderstanding, I'd rather not find out what an intentional attack looks like. I'm sorry, Hermione, but I can't risk my family."

"You don't have to. He won't be staying here, remember? We'll find somewhere else to put him."

"How about Azkaban?" Ron shouted. He leaned to the side so he could get a clear view of Malfoy and mocked loudly, "I'm sure they've got your old cell all set up, waiting for you!" Lucius scowled at him, his face turning red with frustration. Hermione could tell with one glance that he wanted nothing more than to get at Ron, but Harry was still standing between them. "What's the matter, Malfoy? Not so tough when you've got an audience? You always were a coward!"

Hermione started to tell Ron to stop, to go inside and wash the blood off his face and clothes, but Lucius spoke first. "Are we done here?" She couldn't tell who exactly he was talking to, unless he wasn't talking to anyone in particular.

"Yes. We're through." Arthur nodded, his tone suggesting the quicker Malfoy left his home, the happier everyone would be.

'_No!'_ Hermione thought. _'We're not done! You've made me look like a fool and now you're just going to leave? Bastard…'_ She still needed to talk to Harry. The rest of the Weasleys would never agree to helping Malfoy not, but maybe Harry was still worth a shot. Hermione looked over at him and saw he had lifted his wand back to Malfoy's chest.

"You're still under Ministry supervision, Malfoy." He warned. "I don't want to see you back here or I'll consider it a direct violation of your probation." It was strange, to hear Harry talk to this fully-grown wizard as if he were a naughty child. His position within the Ministry must have changed him, given him a confidence only gained by the knowledge of his own power.

Lucius smirked. "How kind of you, Potter." Peering around at the cluster of red-haired, freckled faces across the stretch of grass from him, his face twisted into a look of disgust. "But I don't think I'll be returning anytime soon, despite the generous hospitality shown," he added sarcastically. Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. He was obviously done trying to make a good impression on the Order. Lucius skimmed over them until he landed on Hermione. "I appreciate what you've done, Miss Granger, but it appears the decision has been made for me." Without another word, he vanished, disappearing before she could stop him.

She groaned and stalked towards the front door of the Weasley home. As she passed Harry, he looked confused. "What was that supposed to mean? I thought you were done helping him, Hermione."

Harry didn't know the full reason why Malfoy had been there. She had only been given enough time to explain it to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley before the spells started to fly outside. "He was going to help us, Harry." She informed him bitterly, disappointment dripping off her tongue with every word. "We could have used him to get to the V.R.S."

A cold wave of regret washed over Harry's face. He had been dealing with the messes the V.R.S. had been causing for the Ministry ever since they first began to grow and expand. They were quickly becoming unmanageable, a threat, and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't seem to stop them long enough for any real progress to be made. Harry clenched his jaw shut defensively. "He was lying. There's no way he would have helped us. If anything, he would be getting information from us to send back to them, not the other way around."

Hermione frowned and started walking back to the door. "I guess we'll never know now, will we?"

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><p>Lucius apparated back to the manor, suddenly appearing in the hallway just outside his own private bedroom. The door was always kept locked, protected by at least a dozen powerful charms and hexes. Mimbi learned of them the hard way when she first arrived at the manor. The unknowing house elf reached for the doorknob in an attempt to clean the room and change the linens, but couldn't get past the door. It shot her back across the corridor, knocking her unconscious as soon as she hit the wall behind her. It had taken him nearly an hour before he finally stumbled upon her, still slumped against the wall with a lump the size of an orange on the back of her wobbly head. Since that day, she avoided this hallway entirely, taking detours and apparating to and from the rooms she needed to clean nearby. The door had been enchanted to recognize his touch alone, granting him access as soon as he gripped the beautifully engraved knob. Once inside, he made a straight line for his wardrobe and surrounding dressers. There was a solid black briefcase lying flat at the bottom of the wardrobe. Pulling it out and setting it down on top of the dresser beside him, Lucius flipped it open quickly. It was empty. But not for long. He began yanking shirts and pants off the hangers and stuffing them inside the small briefcase. With every garment he dropped inside, there seemed to still be room for more. Much like Hermione's beaded hand bag she brought on their journey to find and destroy Voldemort's horcruxes, this too had an undetectable extension charm placed on it. With nearly half the hangers emptied, Lucius moved down to the drawers, pulling out a belt, socks, undergarments, and a few cloaks varying in thicknesses. When he was finally satisfied with his packing, he closed the lid of the briefcase shut and shrunk the case down to the size of a small notepad. It fit perfectly in the inner breast pocket of his cloak, where it would be safely hidden until needed. With a heavy sigh, he adjusted the collar of his shirt and exited the room. It was beginning to turn to dusk and he hadn't eaten anything since before seeing Hermione in Diagon Alley hours ago.<p>

Mimbi was waiting for him in the dinning room. His favorite foods had all been prepared and laid out on the long table, protected by a heat retaining charm to keep from getting cold. As he entered, he gave her a nod, meaning he no longer wanted her in his presence. After the day he had gone through, his need for company was nonexistent. As he sat down at the head of the table and lifted his fork, he noticed a small stack of letters beside his silverware. They were all addressed to him but when he saw who had sent them, his curiosity died. Crabbe, Macnair, Carrow- all of their owls would say the same thing. They most likely all started off politely, friendly even, before getting to the real point. They would ask him to meet them for drinks, where no doubt all of them would get inebriated out of their wits and relive the glory of their pasts together through memories and stories. They would paint one another as heroes, warriors, brave soldiers, but Lucius knew they were far from it. He would come back to the Manor hours later, right before the sun was set to rise, and collapse in whichever room he managed to apparate himself into that night. He stared down at the letters sitting next to his spare fork and knife and saw nothing but a wasted bit of parchment and ink. Picking each one up, one by one, he torn them straight down the middle, collected the pieces and repeated until they were the size of little bits of confetti.

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><p>Ron ran in the house after her. "What the bloody hell was that?" She was halfway up the stairs as he shouted up at her. His face was still stained red from his own liquids, but that was the least of his concerns. "You bringing him here like that…the way you spoke with him. If you've got something to say, 'Mione, then say it."<p>

She wanted to ignore him, pretend she hadn't heard him calling her from the bottom of the stairs, but she couldn't. Hermione stopped in the middle of the stairs and peered down at him. "There's nothing to say, Ron. I've already explained that he could have helped us. It would have given the Order the upper hand, if you could have just kept your bloody wand in your pocket." She didn't mean for it to come out so harshly, so accusingly, but it did.

"So this is my fault now?" Ron asked. "I come home to find a death eater sitting in front of my house and somehow I'm the bad one here?" He was marching up the steps as he spoke. "You're delusional. Ask anyone here and they'll all say the same thing. No one knows what to make of you anymore." He had made his way up the stairs, standing a few steps below her. "I love you, 'Mione, but you're acting mental."

She slapped him. Hard across his lift cheek, the palm of her hand meet the side of his face with a sting. It nearly knocked him down a few steps, caught by surprise. She had never struck him before, not like that. His hand flew up to his face instinctively as the blood began to rush to the surface, turning his skin a deep shade of pink. As soon as she did it, she wanted to take it back. To apologize and explain that it was all emotions and not at all what she intended to do, but her mouth felt all globbed up and her throat felt tighter than it ever had before. The tears gathered under her eyes quickly, balancing just behind her bottom lashes, and she knew if she tried to speak, nothing audible would come out. With a single blink, they had collected too quickly and her lashes couldn't hold back her tears from trickling down her cheeks and dropping off of the edge of her chin. That was the most she would let him see of her. Unsure of where exactly she was disappearing to, Hermione closed her eyes and vanished, transporting herself somewhere far away, somewhere she could be alone, where no one could see her cry.

* * *

><p>"Master." There was a soft knock on his library door. After the unwelcomed letters he had been left to find at dinner, Lucius escaped to the library to try to relax, to forget everything and just not think for the rest of the night. As Mimbi entered, she spotted him sitting on the far end of the sofa, a book held loosely in his lap. She hated to disturb him while he was reading. It was the only time he seemed vaguely peaceful, quiet, and calm. Closing the door behind her, the house elf stepped forward. "There's a guest, at the gate."<p>

It had only been a few hours since he returned to the manor. _'Can I not get a moments rest anymore?' _He complained within had enhanced the protective charms around the Manor extensively since the visit he had received the other night. Normally anyone who wished to visit unexpectedly would be left off at the front door, where Mimbi would greet them and seat them while they waited for Lucius to appear. With the current protective charms now in place, any visitors would be pushed back, outside the large gate surrounding the entire property of the Manor. Anyone who aimed to apparate directly inside the Manor, or even just inside the gate, would need an open invitation, general clearance to even enter his home, let alone get inside the building. Few had the privilege, his family being the only exceptions. "Who is it?" He asked, but Mimbi shrugged. Lucius frowned in thought. It couldn't be Hermione. Mimbi would know Hermione and be able to spot her if she were standing outside the gate. The only other reasonable answer were former death eaters, coming to spare Lucius a visit as they tried yet again to recruit him. He sighed. "How many are there?"

"One."

Malfoy's brows pressed together at the unexpected answer. "One?" He asked, confused. "Just one?"

Mimbi nodded and held up a single tall finger on her right hand. "Young," She tried to describe the visitor, flexing her arms down next to her body, puffing out her chest as best as she could. "Big," She twisted her face and showed her teeth with a low growl and added, "Angry."

Lucius lifted his chin as he began to understand. "Red hair? Freckles?" Mimbi nodded happily, cupping her hands together in front of her. He had left the Weasley home hours ago. _'The boy can't possibly still be upset over a little broken nose, can he?'_ Malfoy rose from the sofa, dropping the book he had been reading down on the cushion next to him and pulled out his wand. "You're certain he's alone?" He questioned, looking down at his house elf. Mimbi nodded. "Hmm," Somehow he doubted that Ron had come by himself. He had a hot head and a foul mouth to go with it, but he was nothing without his scarred side-kick - Harry Potter, to back him up. "I'll return shortly."

Vanishing from the library, Malfoy reappeared outside the manor. He had apparated exactly where he thought Ron would be and smirked as he saw the young wizard with his body pressed against the gate's iron bars, shouting obscenities in the air. As soon as Lucius appeared, Ron quieted, waiting for him to approach the gate. "Let me in, Malfoy!"

Lucius chuckled in disbelief. "What in the world makes you think I want your filth in my home?"

Ron clutched his wand tighter, raising it up against the thick metal bars. "I swear, if you don't let me through, I'll destroy this bloody gate right before I do the same to your head!"

Folding his arms over his chest, his wand dangling loosely between the fingertips of his right hand, Lucius frowned with a shake of his head. "Well, you're more than welcomed to try, but I'm sure the gate itself would be the least of your difficulties. Now unless you've got a legitimate reason why I should grant you access onto my property, I have things to do." He turned around and took a few steps back towards the manor.

"I've come for Hermione!" Ron shouted. When she disappeared from the burrow hours ago, he figured she just needed time to vent, to cool off before returning to discuss things with the rest of the Order. But she hadn't returned and it was getting late.

His back still facing away from Ron, Malfoy's eyes narrowed as he realized the exact position he had found himself placed in. Hermione must have run off, leaving this fool to come knocking at his door, looking for her. He chuckled again and turned back to Ron. Lucius stepped closer, only stopping when he was at arms length from the gate, and grinned. He couldn't possibly let the boy leave without having a little fun with him first. Squinting, the blonde wizard leaned his face in closer, staring. "What…what is that?" Ron frowned in confusion. Lucius pointed, still squinting at Ron's face. "Ah, it looks like you've missed washing off a spot of blood from your face."

"Sod off, Malfoy!" Ron barked through the bars, his rage returning quicker than Malfoy had expected.

The deep laughter rumbled up through his chest as he asked, "What happened? You've had her less than a week and you've already lost her?" His chuckled began to die down as he mocked wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "Really, Weasley, is it honestly that hard to keep an eye on one little witch?"

"Very funny, now if you don't mind, go fuck off and tell Hermione I'm here to see her." He aimed to motion towards the Manor, but when Ron stuck his arm through one of the gaps in the gate to do so, his finger was met with a stinging zap. He pulled it back towards his body quickly, nearly dropping his wand as he wrapped the palm of his other hand around his injured finger. It was like a muggle mosquito zapper, a small yet effective part of the many protective charms enabled all around Malfoy's property.

It made Lucius smile, knowing he was getting Ron so angry, yet the gate was still holding him back, unable to lash out like he knew the young wizard must have wanted to do. With the satisfying smirk still pinned to his face, he finally let the secret out. "She's not here."

"What?" Ron asked. "You're a bloody liar, Malfoy, and a bad one at that! If she's not here then where else would she be?"

'_Good question,_' Lucius thought. Remembering what he had shown her earlier in the day, what Harry and the Ministry had apparently been keeping from her, he realized Hermione must have gone back to her parents' house. _'That, or the Leaky Cauldron,_' he added silently, but as he thought of the way she had ran up to the trashed home, calling out over and over again for her parents, Lucius knew all bets were on the muggle house. "Why don't you go ask your golden boy- Potter?"

Ron grit his teeth. Of course Malfoy would mention Harry. He always was fixated on him, even when they were back at Hogwarts. It was Harry's attachment to Lord Voldemort, Ron guessed, that made Malfoy seem so obsessed.

Without a reply, but only a suggestive glance to leave Ron with, Lucius turned away and apparated back inside the Manor.

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><p>As soon as Malfoy left, so did Ron. He returned home with his sights set on Harry. Barging through the front door, eyeing each room as he passed, he asked his father, "Where's Harry?" He hoped he hadn't been called back to the Ministry. It was starting to get late, but that hasn't stopped them from summoning him before.<p>

Mr. Weasley frowned, sensing the urgency in his son's voice. "Uh, I think he's upstairs," he started and Ron immediately burst up the stairs. "He's trying to catch up on some sleep, Ron!" Arthur warned, but it didn't matter. Ron was already halfway up the stairs.

Not bothering to knock, he tried the knob. It didn't budge. _'What…'_ Ron tried it again, but sure enough, it was locked. Pulling out his wand, he aimed it at the knob and muttered, "Alohomora!" His wand made an odd noise as the spell tried to work, only to be knocked back by some magical force. It shook his wand, sending chills through his hand and up his arm. It caught him by surprise, forcing him to drop his wand as the feeling passed through him, making him shiver. _'A disarming spell…'_ Ron thought, not wanting to believe what he had just experienced. No one ever used charms like that in the Weasley home. Locks were obviously permitted, but to create a magical force field against anyone who attempted to visit the room was completely ridiculous. They were all for one and one for all, the Order's most trusted members; there was no need for such charms. Slightly offended and still feeling a small tingle in his arm, Ron bent over and picked up his wand off the floor. _'Bloody Ministry…'_ Ron thought. Harry had never been so closed-off from his friends until the Ministry took him under their wing almost immediately after Voldemort's demise. It was an honor, at the time, but they barely saw him anymore. When they did see him, he was like a walking zombie, living off of energy tonics and barely any sleep just to get his work done. Ron pounded his fist against the door. "Harry, I need to talk to you! It's important!" No answer. _'Has he placed a silencing charm around the room too?'_ He tried again, striking the door harder. "Harry, let me in."

He waited, counting the seconds as his temper began to rise. At count fifty-three, the door finally opened. Harry stood, holding onto the door with one hand and rubbing his tired eyes with the other. "Ron, what is it?" The room was dark inside. "What time is it?" He asked between a yawn.

Ron walked inside, pushing the door open slightly wider to fit past Harry. "Hermione- She's gone missing," He started.

Harry interrupted, closing the door softly with a click. "I hate to say it, Ron, but did you check with Malfoy? She's been spending a lot of time with him…it might be worth a shot."

Shaking his head, Ron replied. "She's not there. I checked." His eyes narrowed. "But that's the odd thing. When I asked Malfoy, he told me to ask you." Harry scowled, returning to his bed to sit down. Ron folded his arms in front of him and stared at Harry. "What do you suppose that's supposed to mean?"

His tone was accusatory, making Harry's scowl deepen. "I don't know, Ron." He answered dismissingly. "You know he's a liar. He was probably just trying to get a rise out of you." Harry glanced at the way Ron was still standing, his arms locked over his chest with his wand held firmly in his right hand. "And by the looks of it, he was successful."

* * *

><p>The muggle neighborhood was still abandoned. Though the street lights were all standing tall and bright, the houses on either side of him remained dark and empty. Surely repairs would begin tomorrow, so that the families could move back in the following week or two. There really wasn't a lot of structural damage done to any of the homes, but with nearly all the windows blasted through and some with gaping holes in the roofs, it would take some extra time to repair those houses. With his serpent-headed walking stick to his right side, Malfoy stood in the center of the street, staring at the house he had visited earlier in the day with Hermione. As he started walking towards the muggle home, it felt familiar. He had invaded many homes just like this one, during his time under Voldemort. <em>'That part of me is over…'<em> He thought silently, pushing the memories of all those homes, all those terrified families, from his mind. This was entirely different. _'Then what do I have to gain? What am I even doing here?'_ There was no logical reason for him to be there, but as he realized it and admitted to the fact, he was already at the front porch, walking up the steps. Hesitating at the door, he was unsure of whether or not to knock. Technically, the home was supposed to be empty, so why bother knocking? But he'd easily place all bets on the guess that Hermione is inside. He frowned. He could be wrong and she could be miles away, no where near this house. For all he knew, she could have just been blowing off some steam, leaving the Weasley home for a few hours to calm down before returning to them. Malfoy looked disappointed by the thought. If that were the case, he would be the foolish one, not Ron, hunting her down in places she hadn't even been. _'This is absolutely ridiculous…I shouldn't even be here.'_

His head lifted, staring hard at the door, as if it made it easier to hear through it. It didn't. There must have been some old remnants of a protective charm around the walls. It warped and softened any sounds, but as Lucius glared at the door, he was positive he had heard a small noise coming from inside. His face pulled tighter as he strained to hear it again. It sounded like an animal, some unrecognizable sound that he only knew could come from something living. He frowned. _'It's the charm, breaking down…still blocking some noises but not strong enough to keep it all locked behind the walls.'_ After all, what would an animal be doing in a muggle home, unless Hermione had a pet that she never bothered to mention. Lucius smiled, as he thought of how the spell had actually got there in the first place. She must have placed it around the house while she was still living there. Now that she'd been gone, no longer there to keep it afloat as it weathered the non-magical elements of the world, it had begun to fade away. _'How long has it actually been?'_ He wondered. _'A month? …Has it really been a month already?'_ It must have been. The Potter wedding was scheduled for next week, making it easy for him to set up a quick timeline in his head.

The noise coming from inside the house interrupted his thoughts, and he couldn't hold back his curiosity any longer. Glancing around the front section of the house, he moved away from the door, leaning around the side of the porch to peer into the closest window. It's dark inside. The only light that he could see was coming from what looked distinctly like the tip of a wand. Against the magical glow of the spell, Hermione's face was illuminated. He was too far away to see what she was doing, but it was clear from her movements that she had something in her hands. Her head was bowed and the hair falling around her face blocked his view, but the broken window allowed him better reception to any noises than the door had given him. Her head bobbed slightly and as he heard her sniffle down a soft sob, Malfoy realized exactly what she was doing. Crying. _'I should leave…I'm only intruding.'_ His conscious getting the better of his curiosity, Lucius leaned back away from the window. _**SNAP.**_As he shifted his weight back properly, a small twig under his foot cracked in half, the sound ringing clear through the air around him. Out of instinct, he glared down at the offending object, hoping to somehow silence it before it drew too much attention, but it had already been done. Looking back up at the window, her eyes were on him.

Her cheeks were wet and her nose appeared pink and stuffy, but her eyes stayed trained on his. Something inside of him wanted to look away, to pull away from that window and apparate back to the manor where he could pretend she didn't see him peering in at her during such a private moment. But he couldn't. She had already spotted him and it seemed even more evident by the way their eyes couldn't seem to break. Slowly, Lucius stepped back towards the door and took in a self-reassuring breath before rapping the edges of his knuckles against its surface. She had seen it was him, so surely she must know it was him knocking then. _'Will she answer?'_ He wondered nervously, though he couldn't place what exactly was making him anxious. Staring at the door, the seconds passed and collected until he was nearly positive that enough had passed to reach the one minute mark. Lucius took another deep inhale before turning around. _'Good riddance… I wanted my evening free anyway,'_

Just as his first foot touched the steps leading off the porch and away from the muggle home, he heard the door creak open behind him. He paused, his foot still down one level from the other. "Lucius." It was simple, not scolding, nor delighted, but somewhere neutral in between the two extremes. Drawing his foot back up onto the porch, he shifted sideways to look back at the doorway. Her cheeks, though still shimmering and flushed, were no longer glossy from the tears he had most certainly seen minutes ago, but her eyes still looked slightly swollen and irritated.

Pulling the door back further, Hermione silently allowed him entrance. With a short nod, unsure of what exactly his role there would be, Lucius walked past her into the house. It was still in a certain state of disarray, making it clear enough that Hermione didn't come back tonight to make repairs. Awkwardly, Lucius stood in the living room until Hermione came to join him, returning to her seat on the sofa in the center of the room. The stuffing in the cushions were still all torn out, but she didn't seem to mind. Lucius followed, sitting on the other end of the sofa. _'It's shorter in length than my sofa in the library,_' he noted, forcing them to sit slightly closer here than all the times in his Manor. Changing the topic in his mind, he glanced down at the table in front of them and spotted what she must have been holding when he saw her from outside. It was a book. "What are you reading?" He asked.

The question made her smile. "It's a photo album," she corrected him. Lucius nodded in sudden understanding. He should have guessed that she would return to gather more pictures. As he gave it some more thought, he realized she hadn't seen her parents in at least the past month, since she had returned to the wizarding world. With the destruction of their neighborhood and their home, it was unclear when exactly they would return, so she could see them again. _'It's not as if they left a forwarding address for her to find them.'_

Hermione picked up the photo album and flipped it open to a random page in the center. There was a picture of a woman- who he assumed to be her mother, in the kitchen with a gigantic bowl of some kind of cake batter. Next to her stood a small girl with ratty, wild hair and big front teeth. _'And Hermione,_' he thought, identifying the girl. She was holding up a big, messy mixing spoon, smiling happily at the camera. "My birthday," Hermione explained. "I was five and had just found a book with all sorts of cake recipes. So, that year for my birthday, I decided to make my own cake, with my mum's help of course." She always talked so quickly when she was recalling something, whether it be a story or some random fact she had read somewhere in a book. Lucius's cheeks lifted slightly as his mouth curved upwards into a discreetly amused grin. "But we had gotten the measurements all wrong." She added. "So we tried adding more of the other ingredients, to balance it out. We figured it would just be a really big cake, but it turned out by the time everything was all sorted, we had somehow tripled the original recipe." Lucius stared down at the picture, hearing the emotions from the old memory dancing through her voice. "We didn't have enough round cake pans, so we used two round ones and a square one." Hermione laughed. "It looked so horrible, lopsided and I don't even think the middle was cooked all the way through. But we frosted it anyway and stuck the candles on top, so I could blow them out." She laughed again, but as Lucius looked up from the picture, up to her face, he could see how hard she was trying not to cry. It was uncomfortable and he frowned, looking back down at the picture.

Maybe if he ignored it, pretended he didn't notice her starting to tear up, then he wouldn't feel so bad for not doing anything. Not exactly experienced in the gentle art of comfort and console, he hesitated. "They're not dead," he offered. "You can still find them, see them again." Hermione looked up from the photograph at him and nod before returning back to the album. Thinking about what he had just said, Malfoy's thoughts wandered to his own family. It was true for him as well. As far as he knew, they were still alive, safe and sound. Painfully, he thought of what they would think of him, if they were still there to see him join the dark side, yet again. With a frown, he decided he's thankful that they're not there to witness it. He couldn't bare to put them through the tyranny of a leader like Voldemort again. _'At least now, they're safe from my decisions.'_

A quiet sniffle beside him caused him to pause. Looking back up from the album, Lucius saw that even though she had been trying to keep them inside, a tear had escaped and began to run down her right cheek. With the one on her left side threatening a similar break-away, Hermione brushed it away quickly. Lucius watched out of the corner of his eye and knew he couldn't pretend to ignore her for a second time without there being some kind of consequence. Before he could second guess himself, Lucius lifted the arm closest to her and wrapped it around her back, resting his hand just below her shoulder. At first, he couldn't place how she would react, whether she would ignore his arm or bat it away with a hard slap to his face, so he kept it as still as he could around her. She didn't move, possibly wondering the same thing as he was, wondering what she was supposed to do in return.

If it had been with Harry or Ron, Ginny or any of the other Weasleys, her reaction wouldn't be debatable at all. She would welcome the kind gesture and thank them for it later, but it wasn't the same situation at all. It wasn't Harry or Ron, and as she breathed in deeper, his unique scent and the feel of his warm torso lingering inches away from her side made it blatantly obvious that she was not sitting with a brotherly figure, nor with her Griffyndor sweetheart. Despite the difference, it still felt welcomed, wanted, and as he sat stiffly beside her with his arm draped around her shoulder blades, Hermione slowly began to lean over to him, into his arm, and turned her body into his side. Matching her movements with his own, Lucius smoothly brought his other arm around her from the front, meeting his first hand on her shoulder. It was as close as he could offer her what would normally be referred to as a hug. He wanted to say something, to tell her it was okay and repeat that her family was still alive, but it didn't feel like the right time to speak. She seemed to vulnerable that the words would just distract from what she really needed. _Sometimes, all that's needed is for someone else to be there, just so you're not sad alone._

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Oh gosh... was that a failure or...? The progression between Hermione and Lucius is inevitable, it's HOW that progression happens that I'm really looking forward to writing :) Let me know in the reviews what you thought of this chapter. Was it unexpected? Did you see it coming? Were you cheering at the computer screen, waiting for it to happen or was it too predictable? Most importantly...how will everything that has just happened change what will happen in the future? Thank you all for reading and I hope you're enjoying the story so far.<strong>  
><em>

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	22. Chapter 22

**_Author's Notes: Hello again! Thank you all for the lovely reviews. I really do enjoy reading and replying to all of them. This chapter is quite a bit shorter than the previous two chapters, but there's a lot packed into this one. Hopefully you'll enjoy it :) Let me know in the reviews!_**

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><p>Chapter 22<p>

"What if she's left again, Harry? For good this time."

"She'll come back, Ron."

"I know…but what if she _doesn't_?"

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><p>"Tell me about your parents."<p>

Hermione was standing in the kitchen of her muggle home with her hand resting on the open refrigerator door. Pausing to think over his request, she shrugged and bent back down to look inside the fridge. "You know about them already. They're dentists." Straightening up with a half-empty beverage carton in her hand, she announced over her shoulder, "We only have milk." Popping open the top of the carton, Hermione took a sniff at the air inside of it and recoiled slightly before sniffing it again. She closed the opening and set the milk back down on the top shelf of the refrigerator. "Nevermind."

"It's fine," Lucius called into the kitchen from his spot on the destroyed sofa. As Hermione closed the door to the fridge and walked back to the living room, he reigned the conversation back in to his initial topic. "You've said that they tend to muggles' teeth, but that's all that you've said. Tell me about them." He insisted again, his voice calm and inviting— as inviting as a Malfoy could get.

Hermione pursed her lips and gave a short shake of her head, dismissingly. "I don't know. They're just ordinary, I suppose. You'd probably find them boring." Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she checked for any signs of boredom already setting in. He seemed attentive, interested even. She thought of reversing the question on him, asking about his family, his parents, aunts, uncles, or any other relatives, just to spite his prying curiosity in her own linage. Quickly tracing back as far as she could remember of the Malfoy family tree, and landing on death eater after death eater, she decided against the idea entirely. Hermione gave another shrug of her shoulders and offered what she thought would qualify as a brief summary of her family history. "My parents met when they were still in university. They had a few classes scheduled together, since they were both studying dentistry. After a while, they decided to start studying together, within a group of other students. They didn't even start dating until after graduation, being so focused on their schoolwork, of course." Lucius gave an agreeable nod, beginning to understand where she got her educational drive from. Hermione shifted on her cushion, leaning against the armrest so as to face him properly, and questioned, "Why do you ask?"

"Just passing the time," Lucius answered innocently. He could tell by the way Hermione's eyes traced over his expressionless face when she thought he wasn't looking, that she didn't believe him. It was a small concern, seeing as he honestly didn't care for her parents either way. He had never met them and had no plans on meeting them, so what would it matter what type of people they were, their interests, hobbies, likes and dislikes? It was a filler topic for when the conversations began to dwindle down between them. At the mention of time, Lucius looked around for a nearby clock. _'Nearly an hour before midnight, it is getting late already,'_ he noted. "You should hurry back to the ginger brigade. They'll assume I've kidnapped you if you don't return by morning." Though he was partially teasing, they both knew it wasn't an entirely empty warning.

She nodded, collecting the family albums she had originally came for, and stuffed them into her small beaded handbag. "I doubt I'll be going back to the burrow until tomorrow. If I go back now, this late at night, it'll only give them cause for even more questions than the ones I'm sure they already have." Hermione stood from the sofa and Lucius followed, straightening the front of his shirt and cloak as he rose.

"If you won't be spending the night at the burrow, where will you go?" He already knew the answer, but in the back of his mind, a small thought made him wonder if she was planning on sleeping here, in her parent's destroyed home. She could replace the protective charms that had begun to deteriorate, and start repairing the damaged and broken bits of furniture. If that were the case, he even contemplated offering to help her, not wanting to return to his own blatantly empty home.

She bit at her bottom lip and gave a quick glance around the living room. Though it had been blasted by spell after dark spell, she could still recognize little characteristics that made it seem like home. There was a calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. Her mum used to make sure to mark off every day, never missing a single one. As Hermione looked at it now, the past couple days were still unmarked and it made her eyes take a sullen turn away from the kitchen as a whole. She hadn't found the courage to check any of the upstairs yet, but if her parents' intruders managed to treat her bedroom the same way they had done the rest of the house, Hermione couldn't bear the thought of sleeping in her own bed. "The Leaky Cauldron, I suppose. They seem to always have a vacancy."

Lucius shifted in his stance, neatly tucking his hands behind him, overlapping them in the small of his back. "You're more than welcomed to stay at the manor," he suggested, without feeling any need for elaborations or explanations.

With no special conditions or the notion of any owed favors laced over his offer, the simplicity of his proposal was refreshing. It was even worth pursuing. "Well, I have been wondering how Mimbi's been doing."

Lucius smirked. _'Of course she couldn't just accept like any normal witch would, with a thank you and a smile.'_ His right eyebrow lifted slightly higher than his left as he played at her game. "She's been well, but I'm sure she'd be thrilled to tell you that for herself once we arrive." He waited just long enough to catch the small flicker of a smile flash over her lips, before extending his hand. "However, I have to warn you. I claim no responsibility, should she try to convince you to stay longer." This charming remark earned him a soft exhale of laughter from Hermione, followed by the grasp of her hand within his.

As expected, the manor was painfully silent when they arrived, aside from the delighted, high-pitched squeal that Mimbi nearly held back upon seeing Hermione. Malfoy took a step back as the house elf collided with Hermione's waist, wrapping her skinny noodle arms around her midsection. Hermione giggled at the sudden surprise. "I'm glad to see you too, Mimbi," she spoke with a smile as she stared down her front at the top of the elf's disproportioned head.

"Mimbi thought Miss Granger was dead!" She cried, overjoyed, with her face pressed against Hermione's stomach.

Hermione frowned, shooting a disapproving glare at Malfoy. "Dead? What have you been telling her?"

Lucius held up both his hands and shook his head innocently. "Nothing. Maybe that was the problem." Mimbi gave a nod in agreement and hugged Hermione tighter, causing her to nearly topple over from having her lower-half immobilized. "Perhaps we should let Miss Granger rest. She's had a long day." If anyone other than Malfoy had said the exact same words, the meaning would have been entirely different. However, with Malfoy's stern tone and iron-faced appearance, it was unmistakable that his words were in no way a friendly suggestion, but a direct order. Recognizing the difference immediately, Mimbi backed away from Hermione with an enormous grin and disappeared from the corridor with a pop. Lucius caught Hermione's overwhelmed sigh of relief as soon as she was released from his house elf's tight hold. "I warned you," he reminded her playfully.

"I don't mind it." Hermione smiled. "She's sweet."

Having no experience with complimenting house elves or any other non-human creatures below him, Lucius cleared his throat and abandoned the topic of Mimbi. "Your room's been kept up. I'm sure you're looking forward to a peaceful night."

Noting the way he referred to the previous room she tended to stay in while at the Manor as '_her _room', Hermione took it as an indirect way to welcome her back, much less obvious than Mimbi's way of course. "Actually, I've got a lot on my mind. I don't think I'd be able to sleep right now if I tried."

Lucius nodded. _'Of course, she's just left the muggle home. Her mind must be racing with every thought imaginable.'_ He gave another short tilt of his head. "Before meeting with you, I had planned on spending the rest of my night in the library, to unwind." Hermione tried to picture a wizard like Lucius Malfoy _unwinding_ but couldn't find a suitable image that didn't remind her of the many ways Bellatrix and the rest of the death eaters chose to unhinge themselves from reality. It usually involved a poor muggle and a horribly descriptive article in the Daily Prophet's obituary and crime sections. "You're free to join me if you'd prefer." His eyes lowered, breaking away from Hermione's as he tried to find a different focal point other than her. It was as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't decide whether or not it was really appropriate. In true Malfoy fashion, he chose to say it anyway, however his eyes remained elsewhere. "I'd assume that your night terrors would return, if only for tonight." Shooting a curious glance at her face to gauge her reaction, he realized she too had looked away. "On account of the news of your parents and the attack on their neighborhood," he elaborated gently before finally finishing. "Reading might be a nice distraction."

Hermione remained silent, simply motioning with her head that she had given it the same amount of thought. It was the main reason she didn't want to go to sleep then. If her mind was so overwhelmed with what had happened to her family home now, while she was awake, what in the world would it produce for her while she was asleep, where her imagination and creativity was meant to roam freely? She brushed the thought away before it could multiply. "Have you got any new books?"

He couldn't help but smile at her question, as silly of an inquiry as it was. "Of course," Lucius confirmed. "A couple," he admitted proudly.

* * *

><p>The first ten minutes were spent browsing the bookshelves, thumbing over their broken-in spines, and discussing the new titles Lucius had added to his ever-growing collection. The following half hour was devoted strictly to solid reading, with very little interruptions. Lucius closed the book he had balanced in his lap and set it soaring gracefully through the air for it to find its own spot back on the bookshelf. "Pass me that one," he said, pointing to the one directly in front of Hermione.<p>

"Which one?" There was a stack of books sitting on the coffee table in front of the sofa. She picked up the one on top of the pile and held it out to Lucius. "This one?" He nodded and took it out of her hand. Hermione watched as he leaned back against his corner of the sofa and cracked open the book, flipping past the beginning title and copy-write pages, searching for the first chapter. "You'll need to work on that," she said abruptly, going back to her own book pretentiously.

Lucius glanced at her, clueless to what she was referring to. "What exactly would I be working on?"

"Your manners." Hermione replied, her eyes still on the pages of her reading material. "People might be more apt to like you if you were actually polite to them."

Abandoning his book with the casual closing of its cover, Lucius scowled at her from across the length of the sofa. "What makes you think that I'm concerned with whether I'm _likeable_ or not?"

Hermione finally lifted her eyes from the book she was reading to clarify, elongating her syllables to stretch the importance of her words. "The Order."

Malfoy's interest was lost, causing him to turn back down to his lap and search for the page he had left off on. "I think we both know that ship has sailed, Miss Granger," he muttered with one raised brow.

"There are other members of the Order. Ministry members. You've been keeping a low enough profile, and haven't gotten into trouble since the end of the war. They have no reason not to trust you." She tried.

"I thought we were done with this conversation." Malfoy stated sharply. It wasn't a question, or a suggestion to get off the topic, but an order.

Hermione didn't take it as such. "If there's even the slightest chance of getting you on the right side, what's the harm in taking it? I don't see how you can just give up when there's bound to be a way out."

Lucius glared down at his book. _'Why is she trying so hard?'_ With his jaw clenched tightly, he dismissed her one more time. "If you're through scolding me, I'd rather not discuss decisions that are solely my own responsibility. It doesn't concern you."

'_But it does…it does concern me. It concerns everyone. If another war breaks out, and we lose, I'd only have myself to blame for practically handing over an experienced dueler to the Dark side. The rest of the Order may be too cocky to see that, but with the number of dark witches and wizards growing every day, the last thing we can offer is to lose grasp of any supporters we might be able to pull to our side.'_ It was the driving force behind Hermione's efforts, the solid reason that no one could tear down without sounding over-confident. "You'd be an asset." Hermione said monotonously. _'To both sides.'_ The thought made her uneasy. "That's all I meant."

* * *

><p>They returned to their books for another hour, taking them to nearly one in the morning before Mimbi popped just outside the door and knocked. Lucius bid her to enter, to which she did. Her normally happy demeanor that Hermione had witnessed earlier had been completely stripped away, leaving her eyes to nervously dart around the room, landing quickly on Malfoy. "Visitors, Master."<p>

Closing her book with her finger held as a place holder, Hermione looked to Lucius. _'Any visitors this late at night were bound to be important. Otherwise, they would wait until morning,'_ she concluded. Malfoy eyed the elf carefully, noticing her nervous, jerky movements and the slight tremor in her voice. Hermione was staring at him; he had to say something. Setting his book down on the table in front of them, Lucius rose from the sofa and walked towards the door. "Ah, I forgot I had asked a few friends to drop by tonight." As he reached Mimbi by the door, he pressed a reassuring smile over his shoulder at Hermione and added, "This won't take long. Stay here."

Turning back to the door, Malfoy grabbed Mimbi by a handful of the rags she called clothes and pulled her out into the hallway. Naturally, the door already had a permanent silencing charm placed over it, given the general purpose of a library. He readjusted his grip on the small elf, grabbing her by the front of her torn and dirty _'shirt_', and yanked her a few paces away from the library. "Listen to me. Miss Granger is not to leave this room." Lucius jutted his index finger at the door before grabbing at her front again, regaining his firm hold. Mimbi looked terrified.

"Master," she began, shaking her head slowly. "Not know visitors coming?"

Malfoy let go of her raggedy clothes roughly. "Wait for my return. If I don't come back in an hour's time," Lucius paused, glancing back over at the library door. "Take Miss Granger away from the Manor. Wherever she wants to go, you escort her there safely."

Mimbi sensed that he was getting ready to leave, to go greet his _guests_. "Master." She stopped him before he could apparate to the gate. "Anything else?" The fragile elf asked nervously.

Lucius stared down at her. It was obvious that she was scared. She had seen what these people, his former _friends_ had done the last time they had dropped by for a visit. One of his acquaintances had even struck the poor house elf, knocking her to the floor while the others laughed. It was no wonder she was hesitant about him meeting with them again tonight. "Just get her somewhere safe if I don't return," Malfoy muttered, his eyes distant and vacant. _'This doesn't involve her.'_

* * *

><p>Ron couldn't sleep. He had gone to lie down in bed hours ago but no matter how much he tossed and turned, he couldn't ignore the fact that Hermione wasn't there with him. Frustrated and overtired, he slipped back on his trousers and shirt and went for a walk in the bright moon's light. <em>'Maybe some fresh air will do me some good.'<em> As he stepped downstairs and passed the kitchen, something caught his eye. Doubling back to the kitchen, he peeked inside. "Dad? What are you doing awake? It's nearly after one."

"I could ask you the same. I thought you had Quidditch practice in the morning?" Arthur Weasley sat at the end of the long kitchen table, in his usual spot, with a layer of parchment papers spread out in front of him.

"I do." Ron answered before correcting himself. "I mean, I'm supposed to." He walked around the table, passing chair after chair until he stopped right beside his father and looked down at the papers. _'Work,'_ Ron thought. "I'll call in sick once it gets to be a decent hour."

Mr. Weasley frowned up at his son. "You don't look ill," he noted, looking over Ron's face a little more carefully this time.

Ron agreed. "I'm not, but Hermione hasn't come home. I'm worried about her." He shook his head, leaning against the back of one of the chairs. "She hasn't been the same since she's come back. She's like a completely different person and I don't know where it's all coming from. It's like she's been Imperiused or something."

"That's a very serious allegation, Ron." Arthur warned him, straightening up in his chair to face Ron more clearly. "She'll come back when she's ready."

Pushing off of the back of the chair, Ron began to walk out of the kitchen. "I just don't understand what she sees in him. He's a creep."

Arthur frowned and asked, "Malfoy?" Ron stopped to look back at his father and nodded. Mr. Weasley thought for a quick second before making an offer. "If I'm remembering correctly, he should be scheduled for a home visit later today. I'll see what I can do to be the one to perform the inspection."

Ron grinned. "Don't suppose I can tag along? Bring your kid to work day, you know?" He winked with the last remark.

Mr. Weasley laughed. "I'm afraid not, son. Ministry officials only, but if I manage to get the assignment passed on to me, I'll be sure to give the manor an extra thorough sweep. Just in case." He smiled, happy he could at least settle his son's nerves in the slightest.

* * *

><p>"Gentlemen, please. Have a seat, make yourselves comfortable. Brandy? Gin? Fire-whiskey?" Lucius stood beside a small table against the far wall of the manor's main sitting room. Lifting a bottle with bronze colored liquid inside, he began to pour a few drinks prematurely.<p>

"We're not here for drinks, friend." Crabbe stated calmly. They were all still standing— Crabbe, Macnair, and Carrow. Amycus Carrow however, wasn't only standing, but walking around the room, touching everything he could get his hands on. Lucius bore into him with his eyes, tracking him as he picked up each and every valuable artifact and juggled them carelessly one by one in his hands. Crabbe noticed the bothered look on Malfoy's face. "Amycus! Sit down, will you?" He was like a caged animal, stir-crazy in such a nice home, though not as bad as Lucius imagined someone like Greyback would be. Lucius watched as Carrow bitterly dropped the old silver goblet he was holding back onto its place on the shelf, and walked over to an armchair to sit.

Macnair followed silently, planting himself in the seat next to Carrow. With Amycus settled down for the moment, Crabbe too found himself a spot in one of the armchairs gathered around the center of the room. Last to sit was Lucius. "To what do I owe the pleasure, boys?"

Crabbe replied, answering with a question. "Have you received my latest owl?" Malfoy thought back on the stack of letters he had torn up that night during dinner. He nodded, holding back the fact that he didn't actually read any of them; however he did technically receive them all. "Good, then you know the current circumstances we're under. Even coming here tonight was tricky for us."

"If it would have been easier, we could have met at a neutral location, instead of _my home_." Lucius offered, though anyone with half a brain cell could tell he wasn't saying it out of kindness.

"But your place is so comfortable, Malfoy." Carrow piped up, rubbing the palms of his hands against the chair's armrests enthusiastically. "Much nicer than the rat-infested hole I've been staying in."

They both narrowed their eyes, knowing exactly what Carrow was insinuating. _'The ministry's pet gets a nice, warm cage with lots of fresh bedding and the finest kibble, meanwhile the rest of us are left out in the cold, begging for scraps._' Crabbe silenced him again. "Shut it, Amycus." He looked back at Malfoy. "We'd prefer to stay out of sight. Even muggle locations seem to be getting harder to socialize in, what with the ministry so careful now-a-days."

Malfoy shrugged. "Perhaps if you stopped attacking the muggle communities so frequently, the ministry wouldn't be so constricting in their efforts to find you."

Crabbe smiled. "Ah, so you **have** read my owls. Good, good. So we're all caught up then." His forced politeness, much like that of a politician, was obnoxious. "Let's cut to the chase, Lucius. We've come for an answer."

"I've told you before. I need more time with the ministry and its puppets. If I'm going to be of any use to you, I might as well gain their trust first." Lucius stole a quick glance at Macnair. He hadn't said a word since they'd arrived, yet it didn't take many guesses to assume where he weighed in. Just like the others, he was too far gone socially to discuss anything with a clear head, a result of the years under Voldemort's tight control. One by one, they all had their own symptoms from the sins they had committed in the past, but these men had already given in to their darker sides. As another war was quickly approaching, they had already chosen their loyalties, whereas Lucius was still sitting on the fence as long as he could.

"Your time is up, Malfoy! We need an answer tonight!" Amycus exploded up from his seat, shouting at Lucius from across the small table set between the cluster of chairs.

Crabbe stood immediately. "Macnair! Get him out of here. Take him out for some fresh air." Though they went out with a short struggle, eventually Macnair guided Carrow out of the room so he could cool down. Lucius was fuming, irritated already by their sudden, unexpected visit, but then to have two of them roaming around his home unaccompanied only made his mood that much worse. Crabbe returned to his seat, urging Lucius to do the same. "Sit, sit. You'll have to excuse him. He's been a bit of a wreck since his sister's arrest." Malfoy's face went blank, obviously having not heard of any arrests, especially not the arrest of Alecto Carrow. Crabbe's forced smile faded. "So you haven't read my letter after all."

"I haven't had time," Lucius confessed.

Nodding, Crabbe began to explain. "When you mentioned the latest muggle attacks, I assumed you knew that not all of our people returned safely. Though nearly everyone escaped before the ministry arrived, we did lose two. Alecto Carrow and Thorfinn Rowle were restrained before they could disappear to safety. They had been assigned a house further down the block than the rest of us, so they could keep an eye on the newer members, but when the aurors started to surround us, those new members failed to send the warning signal to Alecto and Thorfinn. They were too busy fleeing." Crabbe's tone sounded disgusted, and Lucius knew if this new group of dark wizards was anything like Voldemort's supporters, those responsible for signaling Alecto and Thorfinn had most likely already been severely punished for their foolish mistake.

"That's unfortunate," Malfoy recited, though the words sounded insincere without the proper emotions or reaction that would normally accompany them. He honestly didn't care much for the Carrow girl, not much different from her brother with her quick-temper and unquenchable thirst for unwarranted punishments and torture, especially upon those weaker than her. Thorfinn wasn't much better. He too shared a similarly cruel nature, though it would be hard to find a death eater who didn't carry that specific trait. Even with his less than affectionate feelings towards the two, Malfoy could understand why their arrests disturbed Crabbe as much as it did. Thorfinn was an excellent duelist, a valuable person to have on his side when the Aurors started popping up. Even Alecto had her strong points, most of all her loyalty. It was hard to find a witch like her, let alone a witch willing to do the horrific things her and Amycus had done in the past, in Voldemort's name.

Crabbe nodded sullenly. "That it is— which is why we need your answer, Lucius. With the ministry closing in, it won't be long before a true war is engaged. We need to know where you stand and we need to know now."

* * *

><p>"Which one do you want me to read now?" Hermione asked, laying the book she was holding back down onto the coffee table in front of the sofa. Mimbi was sitting next to her and cheerfully pointed to one in the center of the table. Hermione's happy tone dropped as she saw which book the childlike elf had picked. "This one? But we've already read it."<p>

Mimbi shrugged her shoulders sweetly. "Mimbi likes stories."

Hermione sighed sarcastically and looked down at the book. "Tell you what. I'm going to use the facilities and when I get back, I'll read you that book and then another one, assuming Malfoy doesn't come back and kick you out before we finish. Deal?" Mimbi smiled and nodded, but as soon as Hermione stood from the sofa and walked towards the door, she remembered what her Master had instructed her to do.

'_Don't let Miss Granger leave this room,_' he had said. _'Keep her safe,_' he had said. The short house elf jumped up from the sofa and rushed over to Hermione. "Mimbi will come."

"Oh," Hermione didn't expect the company. After all, she was only going a few doors down the hallway. "Alright then. Come on."

But this didn't solve Mimbi's problem. She had been instructed to keep Hermione inside the library. For all she knew, there was a big mean wizard standing right outside the door, waiting to attack them. As Hermione's hand met with the door knob, Mimbi threw herself at her. Hermione let out a howl of surprise as they both tumbled to the floor right beside the door. "Miss Granger must not leave the room."

Hermione groaned as Mimbi sat on top of her stomach. She wasn't a particularly heavy little thing by any means, but the bones of her bottom and knees were digging into Hermione's ribs every time the skinny creature shifted. "Mimbi, what are you doing?" She asked as she attempted to get up.

Mimbi leaned forward with her hands pressed firmly on Hermione's shoulders, pushing her back down against the floor. "Stay." She begged. "Read."

"Get off!" Hermione grabbed at Mimbi's tiny waist, trying to shift positions so she was no longer on top of her, but the house elf wouldn't let go of her shoulders, instantly cutting Hermione's strength in half with gravity's help.

"Read," Mimbi repeated. They struggled, and although Mimbi was a lot stronger than Hermione had originally thought, eventually she had squirmed her way out from beneath the determined creature's body. Though once she was free, it was like wrestling with a stick figure. Her wrists were so thin that every time Hermione thought she had a firm enough hold on her, she'd somehow slip her arms free.

"Mimbi, stop!" Hermione let out a frustrated grunt as her house elf companion jumped on top of her back. Not expecting the sudden weight on top of her, as light as Mimbi was, Hermione's arms slid out from underneath her and she landed hard on the floor again. "Get off of me! This is ridiculous!"

Realizing how triumphant she had become, the wiry elf aimed to keep hold of her dominant position in the struggle. Pressing done on Hermione's back, Mimbi leaned forward, flattening herself on top of the witch so that she couldn't get up without first shaking her off of her back. "Miss Granger must not leave."

With her stomach pressed flat against the floor, Hermione felt the pressure of her wand in her pocket pressing against her leg. She didn't want to hurt Mimbi, but with no end in sight to this seemingly random attack, her options were limited. "Mimbi, I'm sorry," Hermione mumbled against the floor. With a burst of energy, the witch thrust her arms under her, lifting herself and the light house elf off the floor, before swaying her body to the side. Mimbi fell off of her back, surprised by Hermione's quick movements, and hurried to get back on top of her. But she wasn't fast enough. As if her life depended on it, Hermione pulled out her wand and aimed it at the squirrelly creature, firing a single spell. "Petrificus Totalus!" Mimbi's body froze, throwing her center of gravity off completely and sending her crashing to the floor with a loud thud! "I'm sorry," Hermione repeated as she got to her feet. The house elf's wide eyes stared up at her as the rest of her body remained stiff as a board, lying awkwardly in front of the library's door.

* * *

><p>"Listen, Malfoy. We're through asking you nicely. You're out of options, so unless you'd rather live out your days as some dribbling vegetable in St. Mungos, you'll start cooperating." Carrow and Macnair had returned, though the fresh air didn't seem to do much good for his attitude. If anything, when he came back and heard that Malfoy still hadn't agreed to join them, he became even more belligerent than he was previously.<p>

Lucius was still sitting with Crabbe whereas Aymus Carrow and Walden Macnair had remained standing near the room's entrance since they had rejoined the conversation. Noticing the obvious disadvantage he was in, already being outnumbered but then seated as well, Lucius carefully rose from his seat. "Amycus, I'm sorry to hear about your sister but this has nothing to do with her."

"This has everything to do with her!" Carrow shouted, raising his wand at Malfoy from across the room. Macnair remained still next to him, showing no intentions to stop or hold Carrow back.

As if not noticing the sudden threat of a wand being drawn, Crabbe continued his attempts to recruit Malfoy. "Lucius, what's happened to you? You were once so respectable, so loyal and _powerful_. What would your son think if he were to see you now? And your wife? Parading around with a mudblood in her absence…" He let his words trail off suggestively, shaking his head in an obvious disapproval.

"Don't speak about my family, Crabbe. They have nothing to do with this." Lucius shot back, his words turning frigid as soon as they met the air.

Carrow snickered. "There we go! Looks like we've finally hit a nerve, eh, Malfoy?" He lowered his wand, still keeping it trained on his target, except now it was down by Malfoy's torso instead of his head. "It doesn't matter if it's our families being taken and tortured by the dementors and the ministry alike, but say one word about your sacred kin and we might as well slit our own throats!"

Lucius was ready to strike and if Carrow had been closer, he would have ignored his wand all together and just used his fist, but as he looked around the room and saw both Crabbe and Macnair slowly hovering their hands over their wands, he knew he was as good as dead if he even made a move towards Amycus. Out of nowhere, Macnair spoke, asking Crabbe calmly, "Has he heard about his son then?"

The expression on Crabbe's face looked pained, as if Macnair couldn't possibility have said anything worse. Malfoy glared from Macnair to Crabbe. "What about my son? What is this lunatic talking about?" Carrow laughed again, this time louder as he watched Malfoy's face turn pale.

Macnair shrugged at Crabbe. "Sorry, I thought you would have told him by now."

"Told me what?" Lucius shouted at the both of them. His mind was filling with all the possibilities. They must have found his wife and his son, captured them, tortured them and were planning on using them to get Lucius to join the V.R.S. Or they could have already killed him, murdered for refusing to join them. '_His mother would have had to watch, before they would most likely dispose of her as well. Though not before taking liberties…' _He pushed the vulgar thought from his head and aimed not to let it slip in his mind ever again. Without thinking, he pulled out his wand, drawing it quicker than the other two death eaters could disarm him. He was locked in a standoff with Carrow, the only one who had already had his wand out before Malfoy drew his.

"Lucius, let's not be rash. We can talk this through like gentlemen, can't we? Distinguished wizards, surely we of all people can discuss sensitive matters like this without the use of wands." He was moving towards him, his hands rose in surrender, but Crabbe was still inching his way closer to Malfoy, closer to his wand.

Malfoy shifted his wand to Crabbe quickly, urging him to take a step back, regaining him space. "Tell me what's happened to Draco and maybe we'll talk then," he bargained. He was in such a poor position. With both Macnair and Carrow so far to his right and Crabbe all the way to his left, it was hard to keep an eye on all three of them at once, let alone keep his wand aimed where it needed to be. All three of them have proven themselves to be experienced duelers, though Amycus outshined both Macnair and Crabbe. However Crabbe was standing the closest, making him the easiest person to take hold of him. Macnair was standing so far to his right that depending on who Lucius was looking at, he disappeared from his peripheral vision entirely. This was his downfall. As he pushed Crabbe back with the threat of his wand, Lucius lost sight of Macnair and didn't see the disarming spell coming at him until it was too late. With an explosion of spells, both Crabbe and Carrow shot at Malfoy as soon as his wand slipped out of his hand. While Crabbe chose a painless spell, restraining Malfoy where he stood to prevent an escape, Carrow hadn't been so thoughtful. The Cruciatus Curse shot from Carrow's wand hit Lucius with such a force that Crabbe's restraining spell had been overpowered. As his legs gave out from beneath him, Lucius crumbled to the floor, folding in on himself with an agonizing cry.

Amycus lifted the curse, giving Macnair the perfect opportunity to pin Malfoy's arms behind his back as the last wave of the torturous curse passed through him. The tip of his wand dug into Malfoy's pale neck. Crabbe kicked away Malfoy's wand, knocking it under a tall cabinet across the room filled with all sorts of antique magical items. Slowly, Lucius regained his composure. His heart was pounding and his breathing was labored, but that didn't stop him from trying to struggle out of Macnair's hold. The tall, dark-haired man had been an executioner for the ministry, in charge of the disposal of dangerous creatures. The odds of Malfoy getting free from Macnair's overly-experienced hands were slim to none. Still, he fought. Growing tired of Malfoy's spirit, Carrow approached, his wand held down to his side. "Your son," he spat out, standing inches from Lucius. The sadistic grin plastered on Carrow's face only seemed to make Macnair's job of holding Lucius back even harder. "He's joined us."

Lucius stopped struggling. He stopped moving completely and his face had gone cold as Amycus stood in front of him, taunting him. "Draco," Carrow said confidently, giving Lucius a satisfied nod. "It looks like your boy's got more sense than you after all."

* * *

><p><em><strong>ANs: I REALLY didn't want to end it there. But if I had kept going, this chapter would have been twice as long. Plus, Draco joined! Such big news! Let's be honest, how many people thought he was either going to stay in hiding with his mother for the entire story, OR was actually the leader of the V.R.S.? I know a few people have brought up that theory in past reviewsmessages. Sorry to disappoint if that's what you all were hoping for, but I really can't picture Draco rising to a position of so much power, especially so quickly. Before I start rambling on here, thank you for reading and hopefully you're enjoying the story so far. It's been fun to write :) Give me some feedback in the reviews, even if it's just to say whether you like the story/this chapter or not. I love hearing your opinions! Until next chapter, take care :)**_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><strong>_


	23. Chapter 23

**_Author's Notes: Super sorry for the delay. This one gave me a little trouble and I actually ended up having to take a short break from writing it just so I could rethink this part of the story. That being said, the holidays are quickly approaching and (most likely against my better judgement) I've decided that one of the gifts I'll be giving will involve editing a 110k word novel...which is taking up a lot of my time. So while I have most definitely not abandoned this fanfic whatsoever, I just wanted to be completely honest with you guys and let you know that my priority from now until December 25th, is editing that novel. After December 25th though, pretty much all my attention will go to _**_Rebirth** :)**_

_**Please be sure to let me know what you thought of this chapter. I really love the feedback and enjoy replying to any reviews I get. It makes me smile. Enjoy!  
><strong>_

* * *

><p>Chapter 23<p>

The Manor's late-night corridors were dark, cold, and empty. No matter how quietly she tried to place her feet, it seemed like every step Hermione took echoed all around her, bouncing off the walls and carried down to different parts of the large estate. Cautiously, she made her way to the only room she could think to check, though what she was checking for was still undetermined. _'It has to be the V.R.S.'_ she had decided. _'But what does that mean, exactly? How many people had come to see him tonight? Two…or twenty? Were they old friends or strangers trying to recruit him on behalf of this new dark group? What extremes were they prepared to go to tonight, to get him on their side?'_ Hermione scowled down the dimly-lit corridors as the questions just kept coming. Though her wand was extended far out in front of her, she didn't dare cast the Lumos spell from it. It was bad enough that she was walking around the winding maze that was Malfoy Manor so late at night, but to do so with a bright light showing off her exact position was suicide. _'Assumptions, Hermione…so quick to assume these people want to kill you. They may be past death eaters, but who's to say this new group holds all of Voldemort's prejudices?'_ She shook the weak thoughts from her mind. It would do no good to start speculating anything about these people, good or bad, especially when she was so alone in the dark.

She was heading towards the only place she could think to check-the dining hall. During the previous war, when the manor was used as Voldemort's personal headquarters, the oversized dining room became the unofficial meeting room. Even if it wasn't used for the same purpose now, she couldn't exactly picture Malfoy welcoming all sorts of guests into his own private office to discuss business. _'It has to be the dining room…'_ The young witch slowed her pace as she came closer to the door. It was closed, as usual, but as she pressed her ear carefully against its solid frame, she couldn't hear a thing. _'It could be protected by a silencing charm,'_ she questioned, staring at the door for a second longer. Thinking on her feet, she dropped down to the floor on her hands and knees, pulling her head closer to the hardwood flooring until her cheek pressed against its cold, hard surface. She squinted at the tiny crack between the base of the door and the floor. It was dark, motionless, and as she stood back up, her hand instinctively went for the handle. With her breath caught tight in her chest, Hermione forced the door open an inch. Just as she had thought, it was empty. "Lumos Maxima!" Surrounded by the seemingly safe dining room, Hermione lit her wand, allowing the light to fill the rest of the room's crevices.

There was nothing. The table had been wiped clean, as well as the numerous chairs. _'Mimbi must have been here already, which means Malfoy didn't bring his visitors to the dining hall after all.'_ She let out an audible sigh and began to walk around the over-extended table. Her fingertips trailed over each chair as she passed, looking for a clue, anything that would prove helpful. He couldn't have just vanished. _'Unless he left you here, alone, to go out for a night on the town with his death eater mates.'_ Hermione disregarded the bothersome possibility as nothing more than idle thought patterns. They meant nothing. Besides, after they attended the Quidditch match, Malfoy had nearly promised her that he wouldn't be seeing Jugson again. The man bothered her and Malfoy made sure she knew that he acknowledged that discomfort in her. _'That doesn't mean he hasn't gone out to a pub with another death eater. Jugson is one man. Let's not be foolish…'_

Hermione abandoned the thought of Malfoy leaving her in the Manor by herself entirely and returned to the idea that he was still somewhere within the building's walls. She rounded around the table, passing over the slightly larger chair seated at the end, and started walking up the other side. But something caught her eye. Tucked tightly against one of the legs of the long black table was what appeared to be a small scrap of parchment paper. As insignificant as the blank bit of paper seemed, when Hermione flipped it over between her fingers, the other side had writing over it. _'It doesn't look like Malfoy's,'_ she noted, bringing the paper closer to her face in an attempt to read what it had once said, but it was only part of a word, illegible on its own. _'This must have been recent, otherwise Mimbi would have noticed it when she was cleaning,_' Hermione began to realize. _'She must have only had enough time to quickly go over the room once, before meeting us in the library.'_

Her gaze dropped off of the parchment in her hand and trailed around the room for another clue. _'Which means the rest of this is still here, somewhere in the manor.'_ Her eyes traced along the rest of the table legs as she lifted each chair and checked below them as well. Nothing. Making her way around the table for a second time, Hermione glanced over at the small waste bin in a far corner of the room. It had been placed strategically in the darkest area, to avoid being an eyesore for anyone dinning at the table, but from where she stood, its reflective metal rim just barely caught her eye. _'Or it could still be somewhere in this room!'_ Hermione rushed over to the bin and vocalized her relief that it hadn't yet been emptied. She picked it up and carried it back to the table before dumping its contents out over its previously spotless surface. Amongst the usual trash items that were now scattered all over the table top, were similar bits of parchment. _'There's too many of them…'_ she cursed quietly, realizing that there must have been more than one paper torn up and thrown away that evening. Letting out a sigh, Hermione began to sort through the small scraps of paper, organizing them by the different shades and textures, hoping she could somehow piece them all together correctly.

* * *

><p>Macnair's wand was beginning to press an irritating red intend in Malfoy's pale neck. Still pinned in front of the ministry's ex-executioner of dangerous creatures, Lucius eyed Amycus Carrow carefully from across the room. "You're a liar, Carrow. If Draco was truly working with you, he would have been brought here tonight." As his words ended, his mind finished the rest. <em>'As a bargaining chip.'<em>

Carrow nodded in agreement, but the sadistic grin he had been sporting remained. "He would have come, but you see, he's a bit _indisposed_ at the moment." He replied suggestively. Lucius understood his meaning immediately and began to fight wildly against Macnair. Carrow only snickered as he watched the struggle.

"Knock it off, Amycus." Crabbe scolded. Turning to Malfoy, he aimed to clarify. "Your son was needed elsewhere, Lucius, but he is safe." He had a son once. _'Draco's age,'_ Lucius recalled silently. After the war, though he wouldn't mention it to his father, Draco was overheard telling his mother that the young Crabbe boy had been lost amongst all the chaos. Lucius tried to remember the details but their voices had been hushed, kept to low whispers as the family of three hid out in their first location after they had fled the Wizarding World. _'A fire…what a terrible way to go,' _he thought. Crabbe brought Malfoy's attention back to the present day, and most importantly, back to Malfoy's own offspring. "He really has turned out to be a fine wizard, in his own right. You should be proud, Lucius." At Crabbe's words and the guilt that came along with them, Lucius had to look away. He had abandoned his family, his son, and now in his absence, Draco was finally beginning to shine.

His face hardened at the thought. "I am proud of him." Lucius replied firmly. "He's my only son."

* * *

><p>Hermione had ignored the comfort of the tall chair behind her as she stayed bent over the table, the straps of paper spread out evenly in front of her. Judging by the different parchment types, shades, and textures, she had worked out that there were at least three, possibly four different papers torn up in the waste bin, along with what looked to be envelopes. Even with this much figured out, it was still unclear who had sent the letters, as none of them had any logical names or addresses written out. <em>'Someone didn't want to be accidentally found,'<em> she noted as she continued pulling pieces towards one another like a jigsaw puzzle. Even with her newly-found motivation, brought on by the knowledge that they're not only papers, but letters, the task of piecing them all together was still just as daunting.

* * *

><p>Back in the sitting room, Macnair's hand was still fisting the back of Malfoy's shirt while his other hand held his wand flush against his throat. It was beginning to become a tiring position but with the way Amycus kept taunting and instigating Lucius, it was clearly necessary. When Amycus had said his fill, breaking down the blonde-haired wizard as much as it pleased him to do, Crabbe took over with a more gentle approach. "Should you finally do the right thing and agree to help us, your current position with the Ministry will be left unharmed." Malfoy's cold grey eyes rose from the floor to meet those of his old acquaintance. Crabbe nodded and explained, "The more eyes and ears we have on the inside, the better. You'll be given simple tasks from time to time of course, like the rest of us," he paused to glance around the room from wizard to wizard, before returning back to Lucius. "However, you'll be first and foremost a silent force."<p>

"And my family…" Lucius started.

Crabbe nodded again. "They've already been taken care of, in your absence. We take care of our own, Lucius. I'm sure you know that by now." He extended his arms and waved them shortly at the large, elegant room surrounding them. Lucius had sided with them once before, and even when they fell and the Order came out on top, he still had his home, his possessions, and his family. Now that the Ministry was playing such a prominent part in his life, the rehabilitation program acting as more of a Big-Brother system than anything else, he had lost more than he had gained. Ministry Officials were free to enter and exit his home at their will, with very little notice if any at all. In past inspections, they had _confiscated_ items, family heirlooms, and valuable treasures on a whim as if he held no claim to them. _'But didn't the Dark Lord do the very same thing when he took over my Manor years ago?'_ The more he mulled over the options, the less he seemed to have left that would actually benefit him in particular.

* * *

><p>The scraps of parchment paper had been neatly separated into three different sections on the table. It looked like a collection of puzzles, with the edges all placed properly to form somewhat of a frame, with the messy middle pieces still unsolved on two out of the three pages. The first letter she had begun working on however, was already halfway finished. A good chunk of the bottom was completed while only the first few lines of the top were also assembled, leaving the center scrambled. Hermione slid another piece down towards the bottom of the page, fitting it into place, and paused to read what she had so far.<p>

_**To my luminously magnanimous friend,**_

_**It's been so long, old friend. Your absence has been noticed and increasingly missed. Perhaps **_

The rest of the letter's body was still in a pile of unsolved torn bits. Hermione skimmed down to the next section that she had pieced together and read it over.

_**good to see you again. Though work has kept me busy, I would enjoy an evening with you to catch up. I'm afraid not all of our old mates will be able to make it. Work has unfortunately held them over temporarily, however we hold high hopes_. With your assistance_ would make for an overdue reunion. Wishing you well I'm looking forward to our next business opportunity.**_

_**Sincerely,**_

_**Your amateur cartographer**_

Hermione stared down at the incomplete letter and read it over again quickly. In all the time she had spent in Malfoy Manor so far, she tried to recall ever seeing a collection of maps or any sign of Lucius being interested in cartography. He did have a few different local maps when they were preparing to leave for the Quidditch game, but that was the extent of what she had seen, though it was a very large building. There could be maps scattered throughout the many rooms she had not yet ventured into. Her mouth twisted into a doubtful frown as she looked over the body of the letter. Had she seen this letter without knowing his current position with the V.R.S. and his old death eater comrades, it wouldn't raise any red flags. It would appear to be a simple communication between two acquaintances, but she knew better than to believe it. Glancing over at the other two letters, she began to fit the tops together. It didn't take long, but when she finished the first line of each page, the opening, Hermione realized they were all identical. The penmanship was different for each letter, but they all started with '_To my luminously magnanimous friend.'_

"It's coded," Hermione breathed out quietly before returning to her thoughts. _'Everything…the opening, the body, even the signatures are all in code.'_ If she had bothered to piece together the envelopes they had come in, she would see those too were also laced with coded text, instead of actual names and addresses. She moved over to the second letter. The signature was incomplete, though from what she could make out, it appeared to be signed by a '_craftsman'_ of some sort, thought she couldn't say for certain what exactly he was supposed to be crafting. The third page was signed similarly, the sender only identified as a '_warehouse machinist'._ Hermione creased her brows. As far as she knew, Malfoy didn't own any warehouses, and unless the machines had some sort of magical property to them, muggles were nearly the only people to take use of such things nowadays. _'It doesn't make sense,'_ Hermione thought as she read over the words again. This letter too, must have been written in code. Malfoy had been a prominent businessman before Voldemort's defeat. Perhaps this was simply an example of the junk owls he received on a regular basis from all sorts of old business partners. Hermione shook away the thought. _'No…the late night visit, Malfoy rushing out of the library because of it, and now these coded owls…it has to be death eaters.'_ She was sure of it and no amount of falsified owls were going to convince her gut otherwise.

Abandoning the torn bits of parchment on the table, Hermione left the dining hall in search for where Malfoy would have chosen to entertain such rough company. He certainly wouldn't take them too far into his home and allow them to roam around the manor. It would most likely be somewhere on the outskirts of the building, a room where it'd be quick and easy for them to leave should things get a bit out of hand when Malfoy refuses to join them again. Going on the small lead she had gained, Hermione made her way to the front entrance of the manor. She would start there and work her way backwards, further into the enormous home.

* * *

><p>"If I agree," Lucius started to say carefully, drawing out his words as he thought them over in his head. "How will I know my family is safe?"<p>

Crabbe looked dumbfounded by his question and instead, asked, "How did you know they were safe up until now?" Lucius knew what he was suggesting. He didn't know whether or not his family was okay while they were separated. He had only hoped and kept faith that they would be able to take appropriate care of themselves, without him there, but when he really took the time to think about it, they could have died months ago and he would have never known. It was only in his mind that they were safe and sound, still in hiding somewhere out of the country, away from everything and everyone they had previously known.

Lucius rephrased. "The Dark Lord promised us all many things that we've clearly not received after our service to him. If I agree to help you now, what's in it for me? What do I get out of this?"

He knew he was treading on thin ice, trying to bargain with people who obviously had the upper hand already. Macnair still had a firm grip on the back of his shirt, along with his wand pressed steady against his throat. He had no room to even begin to make deals. Crabbe's eyes narrowed as he answered. "Your life, Lucius. If you agree to join us and take the steps to help us as I've already explained, we won't kill you. However, if you choose another path, against us," his heavy eyes flickered from Lucius, up to Macnair's face, as if silently instructing him as he tightened the wand, digging it into Malfoy's flesh. "What's to say Macnair's wand doesn't accidentally slip?" He glared back at Lucius, lowering his tone as his words turned colder. It seemed nearly impossible in appearance that these two wizards had once been close acquaintances, that their children had attended the same school and shared a friendship. Crabbe paused before adding, "Perhaps we've all forgotten our healing spells, and we wouldn't be able to save you, if that accidental slip were to occur." He glanced at Amycus and asked, "Do you remember any healing spells, Carrow?"

Amycus snickered and played along, shaking his head. "Nope, I sure don't."

Crabbe looked back at Lucius and Macnair and asked Macnair the same question. The wizard with his wand to Malfoy's neck shook his head silently, agreeing that he too had no working knowledge of magical first aid procedures. Crabbe's eyes fell back on Malfoy. "What a shame. We best not let any accidents happen then, am I right, Lucius?"

* * *

><p>It felt like she had walked the halls for hours, searching each room off the main entrance to the Manor, but there she stood, having nothing to show for it. With her wand still held at the ready, Hermione stepped softly towards the next corridor that branched off of the Manor's front side. As with every room she checked, she pressed her back flat up against the wall, took a deep breath, and tried to listen for any signs of occupancy before reaching for the handle. This room, like all the others, was empty. She quietly closed the door before moving down to the next one. Her mind was beginning to doubt her actions. <em>'Why am I even doing this? If I had stayed in the library, wouldn't that have been the safest spot? They could be anywhere or they could not even be in the manor. What am I even doing?'<em> She checked the next room, pushing aside her doubts until she was back out in the corridor, alone with her wand held out in front of her body. Finally, she came up with an answer. _'I'm here because it's right. It's the right thing to do. If it really is the V.R.S. that's come by tonight, and Malfoy's gone off to meet with them privately, who knows what they'll get him to agree to? He's so much on the fence already, it wouldn't take much for him to join back up with the wrong sort again…and I'm not going to sit around and wait for that to happen.'_

She was just about to open the next door when a raised voice further down the hallway caught her attention. It sounded like a man, though not like Malfoy. His voice was more rugged, harsher in tone than she had known Malfoy's to be, but as quickly as she had heard it, it was gone. Hermione cautiously continued down the hallway towards the source of the noise, slowing to a halt as she heard it again. This time it was clearer and she was able to make out some of the words. It was the same man as before and although she couldn't see his face through the thin space of the slightly open door, she could tell he was angry. "His word isn't good enough! He'll flop over as soon as he can. Why not just get rid of him and spare us the aggravation?"

"Calm yourself, Amycus. He'll have plenty of time to prove himself trustworthy. Who knows, he might even be more useful than you." A different man spoke.

"That's not funny," replied the one that had been referred to as 'Amycus'. He must have been standing closest to the door because even as he mumbled bitterly, Hermione could still make out his words. "I still say we just kill him."

Hermione pressed closer to the door. Perhaps they hadn't come to negotiate with Malfoy after all, but instead, to just '_get rid of him'_ as Amycus had suggested. She peeked through the small opening of the door and saw the back of one wizard's head, most likely Amycus, and then another man standing with Lucius pinned in front of him. A third man was also present, though he was further in the room and harder to see with her limited view through the door. With them all so focused on Lucius, this was the best opportunity she was bound to get. Carefully, she raised her wand and stuck its tip just barely through the thin opening of the door. Taking an extra few seconds to assure her aim was true, she took a deep breath and muttered the incantation in a whisper. _"Expelliarmus!"_

"What the-!" The wand that had been pressed against Malfoy's neck flew out of its master's hand and soared away from him before he knew what had even happened. Lucius reacted immediately, elbowing his captor in the ribs hard enough for him to double over, the wind knocked out of him.

Lucius scrambled away before he could be grabbed again, his wand still lost beneath a piece of furniture on the other side of the room, leaving him relatively defenseless. Crabbe and Amycus ducked, shielding themselves behind whatever piece of furniture was closest. "The door!" Macnair shouted, taking cover behind an armchair like the others. "We've got company!" He warned.

As soon as he heard Macnair call out the location, Carrow exploded to his feet and shot off a destructive spell at the room's entrance, blasting a massive hole through the flimsy door. "_Reducto!_" He dropped back down behind his furniture shield, resting his back against the chair as his palms pressed flat against the floor, ready to lift himself back up in a moment's notice.

Hermione jumped back just in time, throwing herself against the wall, and bracing against its sturdy surface. Her eyes closed tight as the door exploded outwards to where she had been standing seconds prior. Wooden shards propelled themselves against the opposite wall as they broke away from the shattered door, some bursting across the hallway with such a strong enough force that they pierced the wall behind the door by a few measures. Panting as the adrenaline of the sudden assault rushed through her, Hermione tried to steady her nerves as her fingers gripped tighter around the wand in her hand. If her years of fighting against Voldemort alongside her friends had taught her anything, it was that there were no rules in duels like this. No regulations, no calls of foul and certainly no mercy. Though there had always been her gut, the instincts that had saved her numerous times in the past, and that gut was screaming at her to move, **NOW**.

Another powerful redactor curse had been hurled at the wall beside the door, the exact spot she had chosen to take shelter. She leapt away again, missing the strike by a fraction of a second, crossing back over the splintered remains of the door and landing against the wall along the other side of the corridor. Just like the door, the wall blasted out, leaving a gaping hole in its place and a mess of rumble around its base and the surrounding hallway. It was now or never. They wouldn't dare shoot three spells in a row without taking cover for themselves first. Hermione thrust her wand-arm throw the destroyed portion of the door and shot inside the room, taking aim at one of the large armchairs. "_Stupefy!_"

The spell hit the thickly padded fabric and fizzled out, leaving Amycus unharmed behind it. He leaned to the side, trying to get a glance at who exactly was attacking him. Just barely getting a glimpse of Hermione's determined expression before another spell shot at him, missing him by a hair, he pressed his back against the chair for safety again. A deep, mocking laughter found its way through his chest and up his throat as he yelled out to her. "Ah, little lady. First-year spells!" He laughed again. "You want to play with the big boys, do you?" His lips slicked back into a grin as he muttered darkly, "Let's play then." Amycus pushed himself back up off the floor and jerked his wand towards Hermione again. A burst of flames escaped from its tip and hurled itself against the destroyed wall. She could feel the heat searing at the opposite side of the wall as she pressed her back against it. She was trying to use it as a shield but with the enormous holes now blasted into its surface, the rest of the flames crackled into the corridor like a wild whip and licked at the bare flesh of her cheeks. Hermione turned her face away, pressing her eyes closed tightly until the heat died down, leaving nothing behind but the smell of burnt wood and wallpaper.

"You're going to burn down the bloody building!" Hermione heard another man in the room yell just as the fire stopped. Someone must have put them out from inside the room. It didn't sound like Malfoy and as the thought came to her, she realized she hadn't heard Malfoy at all since the shoot-out had started. _'Was he hit in the crossfire?'_

Her breathing began to quicken as she could hear only whispers and hushed voices inside the room. _'They're going to ambush me!'_ Hermione thought in a panic. From what she had seen, there were at least three wizards inside, none of which wanted her eavesdropping on their little get-together with Malfoy. She took a deep breath and hastily prepared a half-assed protective charm around her person. It would manage through some of the weaker assaults they might try to throw at her, but unless she consistently maintained its structure, repairing any damage they were sure to cause, it would only hold them off for a short while. She was just finishing the trail end of the charm when she heard Carrow again. "Didn't care to tell us you had a guest, did you?" She didn't dare try to sneak a peek into the room, not with everyone already on their toes. "What else are you keeping from us?"

"Carrow, stop! You're not thinking straight." Crabbe warned carefully and although Hermione couldn't see into the room, she could tell Carrow must have had Malfoy in his grasp by now.

He laughed. "Thinking straight? This wanker's got a little witch fresh out of Hogwarts trying to catch us all off guard in here and _I'm_ the one not thinking straight?" He laughed again and Hermione heard Lucius force out a groan, followed quickly by a loud bang as Carrow shoved Malfoy away from him, landing with his shoulder hard against the nearest wall. "Pick up your wand." Carrow muttered quickly. Hermione breathed in a shallow breath, trying to listen to what was being said. "Pick it up!" He shouted. Obviously Malfoy hadn't listened the first time.

"Amycus, there's no need for this. He's with us, he's said it himself. We've got his word." Hermione let out a disappointed sigh as she overheard Crabbe. She had come to the rescue, but arrived too late. The damage had already been done. Lucius had already agreed to join them, despite all Hermione had done to try to get him a spot within the Order. She grit her teeth and shook her head quietly as she stood in the hallway with her back pressed against the wall, her wand still held tight in her right hand.

There was a short period of silence as Malfoy retrieved his wand from underneath the large piece of furniture and cautiously regained his stance in the room of dark wizards. Carrow shouted again, except this time it wasn't at Malfoy. "What was your plan, girl?" He called loudly across the room out into the corridor. Hermione remained still, her lips pressed together as she adjusted the grip on her wand, readying it down by her side. "Is your friend mute, Lucius? I asked her a question." She could tell by his tone that her silence angered him, but she didn't hear anyone within the room make any moves towards her. She must not have offended him enough to drag him out of the safety of the room. "You came here to scare us off? Or did you want to hurt us?" His voice dropped as his last suggestion growled up his throat and out of his mouth. "_Kill us?_"

Hermione swallowed as she tried to work out his question. She was unsure of her answer. Her initial response would have been his first answer, to simply scare them off and get them to leave the Manor, but she knew deep down before she had even begun wandering the corridors in search of them, that they wouldn't leave without a fight. If that were the case, then to what end would she have gone? She knew she would hurt them, possibly even maim them if they tried to strike back at her, but then there was his last option. Could she bring herself to _kill_ them? She swallowed again, clearing the uncertainty from her throat, and shouted back, "I want you to leave, now." It was as firmly as she could get her voice to sound without dropping down to an unnaturally deep octave.

Her answer was met with a dismissing laugh from inside the room, again by Carrow. "That's not what I asked, but it's a start." He paused and as his voice returned, he sounded closer. Hermione braced herself for an attack. "Let me rephrase…what you would do if I were to do _this_?" A smaller hole blasted through the wall right beside her head. She ducked down, pulling her hands over her head as the bits of rumble and splinters of the destroyed wall rained down around her. She pushed off to jump behind the closest slate of wall that wasn't completely ruined and shot off another spell in his direction, nearly landing her target but missing by inches. He let out a howl of pain and Hermione knew she had at least hit him somewhere, even if it was only a minor injury. It was enough to show him that she wasn't playing around and that she wouldn't go down as easily as he might have thought.

After regaining his composure, Carrow let out another chuckle and announced, "You see? Now was that really so hard?" Hermione heard his voice crack towards the end as his breathing had become slightly heavier. He must have been feeling the sting of his fresh wound. She may not use dark spells like they did, but her spells certainly packed a punch. Hermione smiled at her small triumph before hearing Carrow speak to Malfoy again. "There you have it. You have your wand ready and you've seen first-hand that there is a clear threat outside that door, aiming to do harm to those within our group." Carrow motioned towards the doorway dramatically. "Looks like the perfect opportunity to prove yourself trustworthy, if you ask me."

"Amycus, will you listen to yourself? Let's get you a drink, sit down, and fix that hand of yours. You're bleeding all over the floor." Crabbe stepped in and shook his head at the game Carrow was trying to play. "Lucius, help me close this gash up, would you? Macnair, go find your wand." Hermione heard a shuffle of feet as the other two men began their instructions.

Carrow shoved Crabbe away from his injured hand and pointed at the door, staring at Lucius. "Go take care of _the threat_. If he refuses to get rid of a little witch now, how can we know he's going to defend us when it's truly needed? You've said it yourself, Crabbe. He'll have time to prove himself. This is that time."

An eerie silence took over as Hermione remained pinned outside the room. She couldn't apparate, not while inside of the manor, and if she tried to run, would she even stand a chance against all three of them? _'Or all four of them…'_ Hermione corrected herself. If Lucius really joined them, what made him any less dangerous than the rest of the wizards in the room? As much as she hated it, Carrow was right. He had agreed to help them and if he wanted them to trust him, it was time to live up to his word.

"If you would shut your mouth and get out of my way, it would have been done long ago." It was Malfoy's voice, finally. Hermione's heart pounded in her chest as she drew her wand up defensively in front of her. She wanted to believe he wouldn't hurt her, that he would somehow spare her and get his old death eater buddies to leave without a struggle, but as his footsteps became louder, closer, her doubts seemed to outweigh what little faith she still held onto.

'_He's a death-eater. He's going to kill you. He's been playing you all along, you stupid fool and you were too blind to see it coming. Now get your bloody wand up and get rid of him before he has a chance!'_ Hermione waited cautiously for Malfoy to appear through the crumbled doorway, her sense of self-preservation screaming inside her head as she readied herself.

It was his foot that caught her eye first, followed by the long black leg of his pants. He stepped carefully into the hallway and stopped, waiting for her wild eyes to continue darting over him until they reached his face. He wore the same emotionless scowl she had grown accustom to seeing on him for years, except as she looked past it, further up his face until she landed on his eyes, something didn't sit right. It looked off balanced. His face was set in stone but his eyes were alive, vibrant and filled with a fire as they burned into her. Still slightly off-put by the rest of his demeanor and the wand dangling between his fingertips, Hermione kept her wand trained on him. "Keep your distance, Malfoy." She warned as he began to step towards her.

He passed the first wide hole in the wall, and then the next, as Hermione moved backwards, keeping up with his pace in an effort to preserve the space between them. As he cleared the second hole in the wall and came up to a solid surface between them and the men in the room, Lucius stopped. The wall shielded Lucius and Hermione from their view, but he was sure if they waited too long, one of his old comrades would come out of the room to investigate. As soon as he was certain they couldn't see him, Lucius spread out his arms with his palms held open beside his shoulders. It was a position of surrender and as Hermione watched him curiously, he went as far as to flick his wand out of his full grasp. Instead, it now hung between the loose pinky and ring finger of his right hand, perhaps the closest equivalent to the way a muggle would dangle a gun by the trigger guard to show the weapon would not be used. His eyes flickered down to her wand quickly before returning to her face. "My chest," he whispered quietly and lifted his chin away from his body and out of the way in case she were to miss and shoot too high.

Hermione frowned. "What?" Even if she did fake an attack on him, then what was she supposed to do? They would come after her and probably be even more inclined to kill her for her hostility. It wasn't much of a plan. She shook her head and whispered back, "No."

Lucius rolled his eyes and tried to suppress a groan at her defiance. In any other situation, he could honestly say it was her fiery attitude and fighting spirit that he most admired, but this was most certainly not the time he wanted to see it roar its ugly head. He clenched his teeth together in frustration and muttered, "Just aim for my chest and run. I'll do the rest."

"Where am I supposed to go? They'll come after me." She hissed at him. He wasn't thinking properly. It was a temporary solution to a permanent problem. Just because she managed to give them the slip this time doesn't mean they wouldn't go looking for her. Their kind had destroyed her muggle family's home, the whole neighborhood, and he expected them to simply forget about this evening's events just because she got away? It wasn't at all likely, but what other option did she really have?

He could hear footsteps behind the wall. She was taking too long, spending too much time talking and not hexing him quickly enough. Lucius took a step forward and puffed out his chest to widen her target. "Just because the Order has denied me doesn't mean you've lost your standing with them. You'll be safe there. Now shoot me before it's too la-," He was cut off before he could finish as Hermione fired a stunning spell at the center of his chest. It knocked him backwards, flinging him back towards the doorway of the room and landing hard on the floor. If the wind hadn't been knocked out of him by the spell, the landing certainly did the trick. He lied motionless on top of the debris from the door and wall but Hermione didn't wait long enough to see if he would get up.

With her wand still in her hand, she began pounding down the corridor as fast as she could. She thought she heard one of the men yelling behind her but she was determined to kept her eyes forward. It was always after looking behind them that people tripped and fell, and she wasn't about to risk it all over something as silly as that. She made two sharp turns down another corridor and tried to keep her speed steady. If she slowed down, she was done for. _'He wouldn't take them too far into the manor. The exit must be close by…'_ For the first time in what seemed like the entire night, Hermione let herself breathe out in relief. She rounded one final corner before coming head on with the Manor's front entrance. Two enormous doors opened slowly as she yanked them by their handles, but she could hear the dark wizards running down the corridors after her. They were getting closer and the doors were so heavy, like huge slabs of solid iron, though she knew the Malfoys would be much more likely to have solid silver doors than any other metal. She tugged at them like a crazed animal trapped in a cage, trying to get out. It was opening, though not quickly enough. Hermione let out a cry as a spell struck the door directly above her head. She ducked and pulled the door open a little wider. It was all she needed to allow enough of a clearance to slip through and get outside the manor's heavily protected walls. They were yelling after her, cursing and damning her, but she was out in the fresh, crisp air. The dark night's sky sparkled overhead and the perfectly manicured hedges surrounded her on both sides. She had made it out of the manor, away from the death-eaters, for lack of a better word, and following Malfoy's suggestion, she apparated to the one place she knew she would be kept safe. The burrow.

* * *

><p><strong><em>ANs: What'd you think? Just one thing I wanted to mention though. It was not my intent at all in this chapter to make Lucius appear to be weak or less of a man or wizard than Carrow, Crabbe, or Macnair. I know it may seem like that, but really if you're trapped in a room with three dark wizards who wouldn't really have too many issues with killing you, wouldn't you be just a tad bit cautious too? At least that's my thinking.<em>**

**_Let me know what you think in your reviews! If you have any questions that you'd like answered, please feel free to either review while logged in (so I know who to reply to), or send me a PM and I'll get back to you as quick as possible :) Thanks for reading and hopefully reviewing! Enjoy the rest of the story!  
><em>**

**_xoxo WildBubblesRoam  
><em>**


	24. Chapter 24

_**Author's Notes: I'm so incredibly sorry for the massively long wait for this chapter. I'm not too overly excited about it, but I feel like finishing this chapter was exactly what I needed to dive head first back into this story! So hopefully Chapter 25 won't be too far away :) Thank you for your patience and hopefully I haven't lost too many readers with the long hiatus. Enjoy!**_

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><p>Chapter 24<p>

Though it took only seconds to apparate from the Manor to the Burrow, when Hermione landed at the front steps of the Weasley home, she was out of breath with her wand still clutched tightly by her side. She raised her fist to the door knob but paused before touching it. With the way she had left earlier in the night, after the big explosion between Ron and Malfoy, she was unsure of whether or not she should knock first or just walk in like usual. It was late at night, early morning even, and if she knocked, it would wake up the whole house. _'But if I just let myself in and startle someone, wouldn't that be worse… considering the company I've been keeping lately?'_ Hermione rolled her eyes at the thought of Lucius. If he had just ignored them tonight, instead of letting those death eater buddies of his inside the manor, none of this would have happened. He wouldn't have agreed to join them, and she wouldn't have crept up on them and come to his rescue. They wouldn't have tried to kill her and she wouldn't be standing outside the Burrow like she was, beginning to shiver in the cold night's breeze.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the door in front of her swung open, revealing an overexcited Molly Weasley. She was dressed in her night robes, her hair done up in curlers and hidden beneath a sleeping cap. Mr. Weasley was walking down the staircase behind her, rubbing the crust from his eyes as he let out a long yawn. "What is it, Molly?" He asked with another yawn as he sluggishly stepped over to the door.

Without warning, Mrs. Weasley hurled herself through the doorway, grabbed Hermione by the shoulders and pulled her into one of her famous Mama Weasley bear hugs. It sounded as if she was crying, though Hermione couldn't see her face while still buried tightly in the witch's welcoming embrace. As if partially relieved and partially out of anger, Molly called over her shoulder to her husband, "I told you I heard something out here!" Apparently Hermione's arrival was louder than she had thought.

Arthur smiled down at Hermione as she peeked her head up over Mrs. Weasley's arm. "I suppose you've got better ears than I do." He replied to his wife just as she released Hermione from her hold. "You gave us quite the scare, Hermione. Where'd you run off to?"

"We couldn't find you anywhere." Molly added, the sense of worry still lingering over her words like the community mother that she naturally was.

Hermione forced out a weak smile and shook her head, knowing she had nothing but horrible answers to give. "I just needed to clear my head, get some fresh air, you know?" She could see them both visibly frown as she spoke. _'It's bad enough that they've seen you mingling with a death eater. Now they know you're withholding your whereabouts from them…If you're trying to convince them that you've joined the dark side, you're heading down the right track!'_ Hermione's subconscious mind scolded her. They were staring at her and she could tell this was exactly what they were thinking, if only holding their doubts behind their tongues because she's still friends with Ron and Harry. She needed to tell them something, anything that would slow their assumptions and allow them to trust her again, if only slightly. "I went home." It wasn't a complete lie. She had returned to her parents' muggle house originally, hours ago. Their faces relaxed and she knew she had finally given a good enough answer.

"Ah," Mr. Weasley exclaimed, the plausibility of her alibi sinking in quickly. Mrs. Weasley nodded in agreement and smiled at Hermione, who was still standing out on the front steps. Arthur took a step backwards away from the door and opened it wider to allow her inside. "Well, it's late enough. You better get some rest or you'll end up sleeping the day away tomorrow. Lots to do, with no room for oversleeping." He began walking back to the staircase to head upstairs.

"What's tomorrow?" Hermione asked, her mind drawing a blank.

Molly beamed happily at the thought and replied, "Your dress fitting! We managed to squeeze you in an appointment tomorrow morning. You'll need a bride's maid dress, of course."

"Oh," Hermione realized. As impossible as it was, what with Molly and Ginny running all over the place, getting everything absolutely perfect, Hermione had somehow forgotten about the wedding. It was less than a week away. "Of course," she repeated after Mrs. Weasley and mimicked her overjoyed grin. As silly as it was, Hermione had known she was attending but never actually pieced it together that Ginny would even want her as a braid's maid, not with how distant the two girl friends had become over the past couple years. She practically jumped down Hermione's throat a day or so ago when she mentioned Malfoy and the other death eaters renouncing their ways and joining the light side.

"Better get to bed before the sun comes up." Mrs. Weasley teased as she too began to walk back up the stairs after her husband.

Hermione nodded. Though there was a spare bed in Ron's room, left-over from when Harry used to sleep over during their younger years, Hermione didn't want to even attempt to slip into his room unnoticed. It would only lead to hours long arguments about where she had been, who she was with, and why she chose to associate with someone like Malfoy. It was too late and she was too tired to deal with the interrogations. "I'll sleep down here tonight. No point in waking anyone else up at this time of night." She smiled and Mrs. Weasley agreed silently. "Good night."

* * *

><p>"<em>Miss Granger, I don't think I need to remind you of the rules again, do I?" His voice was cool, calm, and as he spoke to her from the other end of the sofa, she could hear his playful tone clearly. Her eyes lingered on him a moment or two longer before casually carrying down to the small coffee table in front of them. There sat his bottle of whichever poison he had chosen to indulge in tonight, and his drinking glass.<em>

_Hermione shifted against the pillow behind her back and asked, "I'm sorry. What was the question?"_

_Malfoy breathed out a sigh of mock frustration and repeated gently, "I asked, how have you been feeling lately? You're looking better."_

"_Oh," she paused and crinkled her brows downwards as she thought. "I've been fine. Better than fine actually. No nightmares, sleeping well enough I suppose. I'm doing great. Thanks."_

_He nodded in satisfied agreement and waited for her to respond accordingly before helping her along. "And your question, Miss Granger?"_

"_Right." She answered quickly, suddenly remembering that they were still playing their game. Before she could think of a question to ask, a knock at the door interrupted them. Malfoy stood from the sofa and paced across the library. As he opened the door, Hermione caught sight of Amycus Carrow. He had his wand out, dangling loosely down by his side as he spoke in whispers with Malfoy. At first she didn't think he even knew she was there, trying to listen to what they were saying, but just as Malfoy was about to shut the door, the death eater in the hallway looked into the library and caught eyes with Hermione. He sneered and started laughing, but it was as if someone had turned the volume completely down, muting him entirely. The door clicked shut and Malfoy made his way back to the sofa as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. Hermione voiced her question immediately, the disgust entwined throughout. "Why did you join them? I could have helped you. You don't have to do this." She was shaking her head, trying to get him to understand just how bad of a decision he had made._

"_You already know the answer. It would be foolish to waste a question on something like that." He warned her. Leaning down to pick up his glass, he brought it to his lips and drank it down smoothly. Returning the glass to the table, Malfoy sat back against the sofa and raised an eyebrow curiously. "How have you been feeling lately?"_

_Hermione's expression deepened as her eyes shifted over him, confused. "You've already asked me that."_

_Malfoy hesitated, staring blankly at her before asking, "Have I?"_

"_Yes, just now. Don't you remember? It was only a minute or two ago." She aided, but he didn't seem to hold any sort of interest in her words. As if set by a timer, he grabbed his glass and took another sip before setting it back down. She watched as he straightened up against the sofa, just as he had done before, and stared at her. His eyes were empty, vacant of any life or emotions, yet his body was still animated just like always. "Are __**you**__ feeling okay?" She asked cautiously._

_As if triggered by her words, he came back, returning to his usual teasing self and smirked at her. "I don't think I need to remind you of the rules again, do I?"_

_Still suspicious of his sudden oddness, Hermione didn't smile back. "So what's your question?"_

"_How have you been feel-," he started but Hermione cut him off._

"_What's wrong with you? You've already asked me that…three times!" Her eyes narrowed as he went in for another drink. Frustrated and confused by his behavior, she grabbed the bottle before he could reach it. "I think you've had enough. You're not making any sense anymore. Where's your sobriety potion?"_

_He chuckled as if she had made a joke. "My what?"_

_Hermione refused to play along. "Your sobriety potion," she repeated, putting extra emphasis on her words in an effort to make them easier for him to understand. He laughed at her again. "What's the matter with you?" She tried once more, staring at him wildly from her end of the sofa. Suddenly, just as before, there came a knock on the door. Malfoy rose from his seat and Hermione bolted upwards with him. She grabbed his forearm, stopping him before he could round the small coffee table in front of them. "No. This happened before. You've done this already."_

"_Have I?" Malfoy asked curiously._

"_Yes! You have!" She nearly shouted at him. Pointing to the door just as another knock sounded, Hermione explained. "I know you have. I can prove it. That's one of your old friends. One of the ones that was here last night!"_

_Lucius chuckled again, shaking his head as if she were playing some kind of prank on him. Letting her hand drop down away from his arm, he walked over to the door and opened it. She couldn't see Carrow, but she knew he was there. She could hear the same quiet whispers between them as they spoke, and as she counted the seconds to when he was supposed to shut the door, she waited for the death eater in the hallway to catch her eye. It seemed to take an eternity, but finally, as if on cue, Malfoy began to shut the door. Hermione stretched her neck up, trying to see past him out the doorway, waiting for Carrow to appear. The door suddenly changed directions as Malfoy yanked it open, stepping out of the way as he pointed directly at Hermione from across the library. The room went dark._

_Her heart was pounding. She could still feel the sofa against the backs of her calves but was afraid to sit down, suddenly disoriented from the lack of vision. She could hear movement. "Lucius." She called out shakily. No reply. She waited, trying to listen to the sounds of the room again. Nothing. No movement. No whispers. Just black all around her. "This isn't funny. What's wrong with you?" She was getting an unsettling feeling, the tone ringing clear in her now wavering voice._

_The lights snapped back on and as she let her eyes focus and adjust to the unexpected change in brightness, she stared at the doorway where Lucius had stood moments ago. It was bare, left wide open. Her eyes darted from the hallway past the door, to the door itself, the knob, the wall behind the door; there was no one there. Her heart was beating so loudly she could hear the blood pumping in her ears. "Lu-Lucius?" She called out weakly. _

_The room went dark again, though only for a second this time. As the light returned, she was face to face with the serpent-like dark lord. His red eyes bore into her. She could feel his sickening breath on her cheeks as he exhaled deeply. Her body was frozen, unable to move, to flee, to scream. The fear was too overwhelming. His hand lifted from the folds of his long black cloak and he trained his wand on the trembling target in front of him. Hermione closed her eyes, pressing them shut tightly as she heard the beginnings of the killing curse rattle off his tongue. "__**Avada!…"**_

"Hermione wake up!" Someone was shouting, shaking her awake roughly. Her eyes burst open as she was finally able to breathe, gasping in deep breaths as quickly as her dry throat would allow. The air rushed in too quickly, forcing her to cough it right it back up. Her body was covered in a thin layer of cold sweat and her head was pounding with what was sure to be a headache that threatened to last the entire day. "It's okay! It was just a dream! You're okay!" The person shaking her had stopped when she opened her eyes, though when she started coughing, the hands returned back to her shoulders, trying to somehow aid her in sitting up straight. Ron. "Someone get a glass of water!" Hermione held up her hand but it was too late. Ginny was already running straight to the kitchen sink. Ron was kneeling in front of the sofa, but had dropped his hands down to hold Hermione's hands as she sat up on her own slowly. Her eyes sheepishly scanned over the faces all staring down at her as she realized she was back to reality, back to the Burrow.

Voldemort wasn't hiding around the corner, waiting to pop out and kill her. He wasn't ducked down behind the couch, and he certainly wasn't tucked away inside the cupboards either. She glanced up at Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, embarrassed, before Ron caught her attention again. "'Mione, are you okay?" The concern was pouring out of his words and laced all over his face. "I thought you were dying, you were screaming so loud."

Hermione's eyes dropped away from all of them. It was more than embarrassing. It was mortifying. Judging by the dim light poking through the windows, the sun hadn't even fully risen yet. There was no way they had all been awake and out of bed already. As she glanced over at Mrs. Weasley, she still had her hair done up in curlers and Mr. Weasley was still in his floppy sleeping cap. There was no doubt in her mind, her fit had woken them all up. She heard a creak behind them and recognized it as the wooden stairs leading to the upper levels of the Weasley home. Sure enough, when she checked if she associated the noise correctly, Hermione spotted Harry and the rest of the home's habitants lining the stairway, watching her with equally concerned expressions. Again, she dropped her eyes down and away from them. Softly, the young witch mumbled, "I'm sorry."

Molly Weasley shook her head, rushing to try to correct what she could. "Oh darling, there's nothing to be sorry for." Hermione pushed herself up off the sofa cushion she was sitting on and sidestepped her way past Ron just as Ginny returned with the glass of water.

"I'm sorry. I just need to…" Hermione began, but knew she had nothing to finish the sentence with. She shook her head, refusing to make eye contact with any of the people blatantly staring at her. She felt like some kind of freak show with the way their eyes all stuck with her as she moved around the room. "I just," she tried again. "I need to step outside…excuse me."

Ron stood. "'Mione, wait!" But his father stopped him before he could run after her.

"Just give her some space for a minute, son." Hermione heard Arthur tell him gently. "She just needs to breath."

* * *

><p>Unable to sleep and completely disinterested in the idea of food all together, Lucius spent another night in the library, alone. Though Mimbi tried to enter numerous times, bringing offers of tea and the kind gesture of her company, she had been rejected each and every time. His house guests left hours ago, not long after Miss Granger had managed to get away safely. <em>'At least I'm assuming she's safe. She wouldn't be stupid enough to go anywhere alone after what happened last night.'<em> Lucius shrugged as he flipped idly through the pages of his book. _'But what about _your _safety?'_ his inner voice rang through his head. _'Will she think of you as you've thought of her just now? Why should she?'_ She had nothing to gain from keeping her mouth shut about his little get-together tonight. While on the other hand, it was completely to her advantage to let it slip to Potter and the ministry. It would be an excellent way to prove that she's fully on their side.

If everything was to go according to the plan, his reputation was meant to be kept unharmed. Like Crabbe had said, he would be a silent force, meaning he could still participate in the ministry's rehabilitation program, still live a normal life, with no one as the wiser to his true allegiance. But if Hermione told them about the ex-death eaters he had as company, and told them what she had overheard them discussing, that would ruin everything. There's no amount of damage control for that. One strike and he would be carted off to Azkaban, no questions asked. _'I can't go back.' _He stood from the library's cushy sofa, dropping his book down on the coffee table, and paced back towards his oversized desk. Rounding the corner with his fingertips tracing delicately over it's edges, Lucius sat down and pulled a fresh piece of parchment paper in front of him. _'I __**won't**__ go back.'_

* * *

><p>It was calming to sit outside on the porch steps, watching the sun slowly rise. As hard as it was to find some privacy at the Burrow, now that she was finally given the opportunity to just be by herself, Hermione wasn't sure how to feel about it. It was relaxing, but at the same time, she couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking about and talking about inside. She had just woken them all up at the crack of dawn and then stormed out of their home without another word. Surely not all of them went back to bed and those that were still awake were bound to be discussing her episode.<em> 'Maybe I can find out which relatives mum and dad are staying with and go visit them.'<em> She thought innocently. But her mind wouldn't allow her the privilege of peace so easily. _'And then what? Go back into hiding like you did before? You're stronger than that…'_

She took a deep breath and pulled a long green weed out from one of the cracks in the steps. _'The Leaky Cauldron then?' _She thought but knew she couldn't possibly stay there forever. She would need to move on at some point, create her own life, get a job, settle down, and maybe even have a few kids. She grimaced at the thought. _'I'm really not relationship-material right now…'_

Her mind wandered further on what exactly her options were before the door opened behind her. She looked over her shoulder as Harry stepped out on the porch. "Hey," he greeted her cautiously.

She nodded and repeated awkwardly, "Hey."

Hermione made room on the step she was sitting on and Harry sat down next to her. At first, it appeared like he wasn't going to say anything, leaving it up to her to make the first move, but out of thin air, he stated flatly. "I want you to stay."

"What…" Hermione started.

Harry shook his head and lowered his voice. "I know you're thinking of leaving again. I don't want you to."

He sounded so serious but she didn't want to promise something she honestly couldn't keep. The thought of leaving was front and center in his mind and the fact that he was bringing it up now didn't make it any easier of a decision for her. "I don't know what I want to do right now." She confessed.

Harry nodded. "I know. I'm just asking that you don't leave. That's all. No one is expecting anything else from you, but we'd like you to stay here." He could sense Hermione was pulling back, not wanting to be put in such a cornering conversation so early in the morning. "I've discussed it with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and they agree. You'll be safe here."

Hermione frowned. Did that mean they thought she was not safe elsewhere? Were they thinking more so of her parents' house or of Malfoy Manor? The thought forced the recent destruction of her childhood home into her mind and the question was at her lips before she could swallow it back down. "Did you know about my parents' home?"

There was a pause. It was unsettling. She couldn't tell if he was hesitating because he was trying to decide whether or not to lie to her, or if he was trying to think of the best way to phrase his answer. She shifted uncomfortably on the hard stone step and draped her arms over the tops of her knees. Harry answered. "I know they were escorted to a temporary, safe location, but no, I haven't actually seen it first hand. I wanted to tell you, Hermione, but I really couldn't." He lowered his head slightly and mumbled weakly, "I probably shouldn't even let you keep the memory, if we're going completely by the book with it."

Hermione shot him a glance and replied sharply, "Don't you dare."

He shook his head and agreed quickly, "I know. I wouldn't do that to you. I couldn't, honestly. It just wouldn't feel right." Satisfied with his answer, Hermione broke her glare and tried to think of something to say, something to ask. Harry continued. "I really wanted to tell you though. But I knew they were safe, so that was the important part." He shrugged, not truly believing himself either. His words were probably more for his own convincing than for hers.

"It looked horrible." She breathed out heavily. "Like someone had completely disregarded that anyone even lived there. They just didn't care at all."

"You saw it then?" Harry asked, surprised. As far as he knew, the ministry had acted quickly with the recovery actions. There was only a short window of time where the destruction was even still evident. The same neighborhood would look absolutely perfect if she had gone back to it now. The ministry was quick to cover up incidents of such a threatening nature. Apparently they weren't quick enough. "I'm really sorry that you had to see it like that. I thought the area had been closed off."

Closed off or not, it didn't matter. The fact that something like that was even covered up at all was the offensive part. "That's how I found out." She laughed at her own thoughts before vocalizing them. "By accident actually. Believe it or not, a _death eater _was the one to tell me."

"Malfoy." Harry stated. He should have known word would get to her somehow, but as soon as she mentioned 'death eater', Harry thought of him specifically.

Hermione nodded with another forced, deflated laugh. "He had figured someone, _anyone_ had already told me. Seeing as that would be the _normal_ thing to do, but I guess he doesn't know the ministry well enough." Harry frowned. She wasn't talking about the ministry. She was talking about him. If this had happened years ago, Harry would have told her about her parents and their home immediately. He would have let her know everything, every detail, so that they could make things right together. But now that he was working for the ministry, it was as if his morals had somehow changed. Not entirely for the worse, but it was heading that way, and she was spotting it.

Harry frowned. "Sorry." Hermione nodded again and the topic was over. "You know Ron's been driving everyone crazy since you left." Harry informed her jokingly. "Between him going on about you and Malfoy, and Ginny and her mum with all the wedding plans, it's like a hurricane in there sometimes."

Hermione laughed a little. "I bet. Are you excited for the wedding?" She asked.

Harry grinned. "Yeah. I'm just nervous."

"Harry Potter! You've fought and defeated one of the darkest wizards anyone's ever seen and you're telling me you're afraid of something as ordinary as getting married?" Harry laughed along with her and confessed his weak nerves to her again with a smile.

Their laughter died down, leaving them to sit quietly together on the front steps. Gently, Harry asked, "What's it like? Spending time with Malfoy?"

If it were anyone else asking the question, she would have brushed it off quickly, but the way he asked, Hermione knew he was genuinely curious. She thought for a second before answering. He could be cruel, when he wanted to be. He could be sweet, on rare occasions. But he was almost always predictable. What she saw was what she got with him. There weren't any surprises because she didn't hold any expectations for him. Given his past and the history he had created for himself, it would be foolish for anyone to expect anything from him. He was just Lucius Malfoy and around him, all she had to be was Hermione Granger. It was a comforting feeling. But she couldn't tell Harry that. What would that say for the time she had spent with him and the Weasleys? Did she not feel like herself around them as well? She may have felt the need to hide her nightmares from them, and flee when it became too much to deal with, but she had always been herself around them. No, it wasn't the way she acted around anyone. It was the way she _felt _while around them that mattered the most. Hermione shrugged out the only answer that made any sense, to her at least. "He makes me feel normal."

* * *

><p>Before long, Mr. Weasley and Harry were off to go to work at the Ministry. Though Ron tried to call in sick for his Quidditch practice that morning, Hermione wouldn't let him. After all, she would only be going out dress shopping all day. Did he really want to stand around and carry different dresses for hours while they dragged him from store to store? By the time they apparated to the first dress shop, it was almost ten o'clock in the morning and they had many more shops to hit before the day was through. It would be a very long day.<p>

* * *

><p>Mimbi interrupted Lucius in his study at a quarter after ten. The small house elf nervously knocked on the door before entering. "Master. Visitors." She announced before clarifying. "Ministry of Magic."<p>

Lucius groaned and waved his hand at her dismissingly. "Bring them in. I'll be right there. Don't let them touch anything." The elf nodded and vanished with a pop while Lucius hurried up from behind his desk to straighten his appearance. Since the scuffle last night with his old pals, he had cleaned up his face but his clothes were still a fairly wrinkled mess. Nothing too horrible, but it would stand out like a sore thumb on someone as flawlessly attired like Malfoy. He apparated to his changing room, switched out of his wrinkled clothes quickly and pulled on a crisp, freshly ironed outfit. "Gentlemen!" He greeted them as warmly as he could as he apparated to the Manor's main entrance, but stopped his greeting there as he caught sight of who was standing in his foyer. Red hair and slightly disheveled robes, their eyes met and he couldn't help but flash a short-lived smirk at the ministry employee. "Arthur, I wasn't aware you worked with the ministry officials making house calls. Or have you been demoted yet again?"

Mr. Weasley smiled uncomfortably back. "Quite the contrary, Lucius. A spot happened to open up for today's visit and I jumped at the opportunity." His eyes glanced around the room suspicious. "You never know what we might find in a big place like this."

Another wizard off to their right stood just outside the room in the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius could see Mimbi take an old glass vase from the man before placing it back up on it's tall stand carefully. "Your house elf has informed us that we're not allowed to touch anything. Has there been a change to the terms of your probation that we don't know about?"

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at his question and smugly shook his head. "I'd simply prefer to oversee the inspection myself." He glared back at Arthur and added suggestively, "You never know what might go missing." They began walking throughout the front wing of the manor. Though Lucius knew they wouldn't find anything of interest, Arthur did his best to stop as often as possible to inspect any and all artifacts and trinkets they came across. Lucius rolled his eyes. _'This is going to be a very long day.'_

* * *

><p>At half past four, they finally called it quits at the last dress shop. Though it had already been decided that all bridesmaids would wear a light, flowery lilac color for their dresses, the difficult part had been finding a style that suited Hermione's shape and figure. Her dress was boxed up to protect from any stains before the wedding day, and shrunk down to fit in her small handbag as they apparated back to the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley started on a late lunchearly dinner while Ginny and Hermione started going over the last of the wedding details. Just as the two witches took there seats at the kitchen table, Mrs. Weasley called to them from beside the back door. There was a strange owl perched up on the window sill, waiting patiently for someone to take the note it was carrying. Mrs. Weasley reached for the parchment but the large taloned creature screeched out an unexpected noise that startled her into pulling back her hand defensively. "Oh, hush now!" She scowled it before grabbing the paper away quickly. It took only a second or two for her to read the name written in what appeared to be rushed handwriting across the front of the small envelope. Mrs. Weasley held it in her hands tightly for another moment, staring down at the letter, before smiling up at Hermione with as much cheer as she could muster into her rosy cheeks. "It's for you, dear."

Hermione could see Ginny staring at her out of the corner of her eye but couldn't bring herself to break eye contact with Mrs. Weasley. As the room stood still, they all had at least one guess of who the owl was from. No one besides Lucius knew she was staying with the Weasleys. As far as she last knew, the Daily Prophet hadn't published anything about her current location, and her parents wouldn't have sent an owl, let alone this grim looking one. Hermione stood from the table and Mrs. Weasley passed her the envelope. Hurrying up to get their eyes off of her as quickly as possible, she tore it open and pulled out the letter inside.

_**I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you over a good book. 8 o'clock tonight.**_

_**Until then, **_

_**Lucius**_

Hermione read it over one more time before folding the parchment back over and tucking it inside its envelope. She walked over to the waste bin, lifted the lid, and began to tear the envelope and its content into bits and pieces. The owl waited until she dropped the collection of torn paper into the waste bin before taking off from the window sill, back to where it had come from. Though Mrs. Weasley tried to pretend not to be watching as Hermione walked back to her seat at the table, Ginny wasn't as polite. "Does that mean you've had a fight then?"

'_A fight,'_ Hermione thought to herself. _'Just last night, I was nearly blasted through by shards of a wall, burnt to a crisp, and had my life threatened by the same people he had decided to side with.' _She repeated her question briefly, "A fight…yeah, you can call it that."

Ginny gave a short nod accompanied by a telling 'hmm,' sound and glanced at her mother for any further commentary. It took a moment of hesitation but finally, it came. "Well perhaps some things have simply run their course. Everything does at some point, dear."

"Right," Hermione agreed coldly before turning back to Ginny. "So tell me about the cake."

* * *

><p>The oversized grandfather clock in the main foyer of the west wing of Malfoy Manor chimed loudly, signaling that it was now five o'clock. Lucius had been leaning stiffly against a wall as the ministry officials in his home continued to turn the manor upside down piece by piece. His face was just barely flushed as his lips knitted tightly together and his arms crossed firmly over his chest. He was excellent at controlling his emotions, keeping his temper kept under lock and key, but after watching his home being torn to pieces for the past seven hours straight, his patience was wearing extremely thin. As the clock finished it's noisy chimes, Lucius pushed himself up off the wall and dropped his arms to his sides as he approached the crew. "You've destroyed the entire first level of my home, Weasley. Are we really going to drag this charade on any longer? You're clearly here to make a point and you have. My house elf will have to spend all night trying to clean every room your men have muddled through today."<p>

Arthur had been watching his men as they worked through the current room, pulling items out of dressers and drawers, even going as far as to remove the bed sheets and covers from the room's furniture. His brows rose sarcastically as Malfoy approached him with his concerns. "A point, Lucius? We're here on official Ministry business. Just look at all the potential contraband we've discovered here today." Mr. Weasley motioned towards a small pile of various items sitting in a bin by the doorway. It included everything from an old family portrait in an equally old picture frame made of elegantly braided strands of thin silver and gold, to a fairly thick book covered in dust. Though the people in the portrait had no doubt been long since deceased, their images still moved just as smoothly as they did when they were alive. The book however, showed no signs of even having been touched in the last decade, let alone being of any current dark magical use. "I'm sure you know the drill by now, Lucius. Your items will be examined thoroughly and should it be deemed that there's been no misconduct with them, they'll be returned to you in a timely manner." Judging by Arthur's tone, even he didn't believe what he was saying.

Lucius huffed out a hoarse breath of frustration and rolled his eyes at Mr. Weasley's words. "Timely manner? I still have yet to hear anything regarding the whereabouts of the items that were seized during my _first _surprise inspection. Timely manner!" He scoffed, crossing his arms back over his chest as he eyed the ministry workers carefully. One of the men examined a small rectangular wooden box curiously. After trying and failing to pry it open with his bare hands, he tossed it roughly into the bin by the door. Lucius paced over to it quickly and pulled it out of the bin. "It's a pipe case, you idiot!" He drew his wand and ran its tip down the box's seal. As if the secret password had been whispered over its solid wooden surface, the box snapped open with a pop and Lucius took out the pipe inside. "Are you really going to confiscate a bloody pipe?"

Mr. Weasley blinked blankly at Lucius before turning back to supervise the workers still tearing through the room. One of the workers paused when he noticed Malfoy still holding the pipe and case in his hands. Arthur sighed softly and gave the ministry worker a short nod, signaling to assist Lucius in returning the now confiscated pipe back to the proper collection bin. He heard Lucius let out a groan. "As always, Mr. Malfoy, on behalf of the Ministry of Magic, we'd like to thank you for your continued cooperation." He could have sworn he heard Malfoy curse under his breath at the half-hearted praise, but he let the remark slide. Truth was, it was getting late and Molly would be worried if he stayed even an hour longer. "Alright men, let's pack it up. We're done here."

"It's about time." Lucius spat out coarsely as he looked at the mess around them.

Before Malfoy could breathe any more relief, Arthur added casually, "We'll continue with the second floor tomorrow morning."

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><p>Mr. Weasley arrived home shortly after six o'clock and although Harry still wasn't back at the Burrow, no one seemed too alarmed. After all, he spent more time at work now-a-days than he did anywhere else. Even Ginny didn't seem as worried as Hermione thought she would be. As they walked around the kitchen table hours later, cleaning up the dirty dishes and eating utensils, Hermione cautiously approached the subject. "Harry's not home yet, is he?"<p>

Ginny paused in front of the plate she was beginning to lift off the table, before giving a simple nod in response and repeating Hermione's statement. "He's not home yet."

Hermione felt slightly intrusive but continued on with her next question. "Is he always this late or is it just tonight in particular?"

The two young witches eyed one another across the kitchen before meeting at the small sink area. The dishes had already started washing themselves magically when Ginny brought the last few plates over. Her brows pressed together as she stared down at the soapy water. "Just lately. The last couple months, I suppose. The Ministry's had a lot to deal with."

She wasn't going to say the rest of her thoughts aloud, but Hermione knew what she was thinking. If it hadn't been for the bloody death eaters and this new dark group they all seemed to be joining, Harry wouldn't have to spend so much time away and he could be here to help plan their wedding. But the dark wizards were reuniting, quicker than anyone had expected, and Harry was facing the brunt of the workload for it. Ginny walked back over to the table and took a seat, waiting for Hermione to follow. "When all of this is over, we'll be moving into our own house and he'll have a more steady schedule."

'_When all of this is over,'_ Hermione thought. When was that supposed to be? And by 'all of this', did she mean the recent attacks or the potential war that they could be facing if this doesn't get under control in time? Did she really think it was that simple? Their wedding was approaching quickly and Ginny was in a sort of fantasy land if she truly believed everything would be settled by then. Hermione pressed a smile to her lips and decided not to correct her. She couldn't bare to burst Ginny's bubble when she was so excited about the wedding. It's not the kind of thing a friend would do, no matter how utterly wrong she might be. Hermione glanced up at the clock mounted on the kitchen wall. It was already after 9:30, closer to 10 really, if she was being fair, and she was exhausted after their long day. "I should get to bed." She was about to add that she hadn't been sleeping well lately, but she stopped herself. Surely the entire household knew how poorly Hermione had been sleeping. She didn't need to say anything. It was already common knowledge and Hermione just prayed that she would get through tonight without waking everyone up again.

"Will you be sleeping down here again?" Ginny asked. Hermione nodded and shrugged towards the couch. "You can sleep upstairs in my room, you know. I know you and Ron are kind of at odds right now, but you shouldn't have to sleep on the sofa. Mum's got a pull-out mattress somewhere that we can drag upstairs."

Hermione smiled at her offer but declined. "That's okay. I wake up sometimes to get some air and I wouldn't want to disturb you. I'm fine down here, honest, but thanks."

Ginny smiled back and stood from the kitchen table. "Well, if you change your mind, I'm right upstairs. It's no trouble, really." Hermione thanked her again before the young red-headed witch disappeared up the tall staircase. Hermione's eyes slid back over to the clock on the wall. _'Almost 10 o'clock,' _she thought to herself, remembering the owl Lucius had sent her. He'd been waiting two hours for her to show up, and if he truly believed he could somehow apologize for everything that had happened the night before, he'd be waiting a lot longer than that. Hermione made her way into the living room, fluffed the pillow that sat on one side of the sofa, and tried to let a peaceful night's sleep find her.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: I know...not too climatic but you couldn't really expect things to go back to normal straight away, right? Not after such craziness at Malfoy Manor the night before! Anyways, hopefully I didn't disappoint too many folks with this chapter. I'm really looking forward to the next chapter though. Bwahah :) Not saying what's going to happen but if you've got any guesses, feel free to leave them in your review! I'd love to hear where you guys think this is going!<br>**_

_**As always, thank you so much for reading, and reviewing, and bothering with this fanfic at all. Your reviews and favorites and all that kind of stuff really do make me smile every time I see them, so thank you all 3**_

_**-WildBubblesRoam**_


	25. Chapter 25

**_Author's Notes: This chapter was incredibly hard to write for some reason. I ended up rewriting more than half of it, so hopefully this version is better than the first version I had written. (The other was just a lot more wordy and seemed a bit boring to me) As always, thank you so much for reading and reviewing! Enjoy! :)_**

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><p>Chapter 25<p>

At nearly four o'clock in the morning, there was a soft knocking on the library's thick door. It was so quiet that if he had been sleeping, there would have been no way for him to hear it from where he sat on the sofa, but the idea of sleep seemed like a cruel joke at this point. He had left the library hours ago to try to eat his dinner but the majority of his plate had gone cold before he could force any of it down his throat. He pushed the tall dining room chair forcefully away from the table and left without a single word to the small house elf who had been watching him from the edge of the room. With a worrisome sigh, Mimbi began to clean up all the plates from the table, the dishes that hadn't been touched, and brought them all back to the kitchens where they would be wastefully discarded.

But that was hours ago. Since then, Lucius had spent the majority of his night in the library. At first, he was waiting for Mimbi to come knocking, ready to announce that Miss Granger had arrived so that their night could begin, but the longer he stared at the clock, the slower time seemed to tick away. He distracted himself with a simple book, one he had read before so that he wouldn't have to pour his full attention into the words on the pages, but even then, he wasn't truly following the story whatsoever. It was something to fill his time, and of that, he had plenty.

By eleven, Lucius summoned Mimbi to the library. The nervous little house elf stood by the doorway, her long thin fingers intertwined in front of her as she shook her head silently to each of his questions. Lucius grit his teeth together in frustration as he watched the elf. "And the owl… has it returned?" Mimbi regarded his question for a second, knowing he wouldn't like her answer to this question either, and nodded. "And?… Was it carrying anything back with it?" Again, Mimbi shook her head, a mixture of both sadness and anxiety playing over her enlarged orb-like eyes. Lucius twisted his lips together distastefully as he mulled over her responses. He had been stood up. With a wave of his hand, he shooed Mimbi out of the library. "Finish cleaning the first floor. Don't bother with the second level…it'll just be trashed by tomorrow." Mimbi nodded and disappeared from the library door. She would not return until four o'clock, sweaty and covered in dust, to inform him that the task had been completed.

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><p>She tried not to sleep. Though muggle coffee was impossible to find in the Weasley's home, Hermione found no trouble making cup after cup of the strongest tea they had in the kitchen. Harry had finally come home not long after the rest of the household had disappeared upstairs to sleep and although she had hoped he would stay up with her a little longer, the bags under his bloodshot eyes told her that he needed to sleep more than she needed to stay awake. "Don't forget, I'm right upstairs if you need anything." He had said from the bottom step of the staircase.<p>

Hermione knew he meant it, but she wouldn't ask him to stay when it was already quickly approaching midnight and he had to return to work in the early morning. "Thanks Harry. Good night." She smiled and he gave her a quick nod before continuing upstairs, leaving her alone once more. Hermione sipped at her tea and pulled a book out of her small handbag. A good story would help to keep her awake, though she knew she would have to sleep at some point.

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><p><em>She was walking. One foot in front of the other, and in front of them was Mimbi's oversized head bobbing up and down as she led the way down an unknown corridor. The stone and flooring was familiar though. <em>'Malfoy Manor,'_ Hermione breathed out as she stared around. Mimbi turned to look back at her over her bony shoulder. The witch must have spoken aloud. Hermione gave the elf a reassuring smile and they continued on their journey in silence._

_They finally began to slow down as Mimbi brought them to a large, all black door. Even the knob had been painted to match the dark shading, and yet Hermione had somehow never noticed this door in all her time spent at the Manor. She looked down at Mimbi and asked curiously, "Am I dreaming?" The little house elf nodded with the same welcoming smile across her lips as always. She adored Hermione and it seems even in dreams, the tiny creature still couldn't help but love her. "Why am I here?"_

_Mimbi quietly brought a single scrawny finger up to her lips, a wordless gesture meant to hush the young witch. Hermione watched as the house elf gently placed both hands on the dark door knob and twisted it as carefully as she could, trying to keep the noise to an absolute minimum. With a soft click, it gave away from the frame and Mimbi pulled it open just as carefully. The room was black, obviously lacking in any windows or natural light of any kind. A quick shiver rolled down Hermione's spine. Mimbi motioned towards the open door._

"_I'm not going in there." Hermione whispered, keeping one eye on the small elf and the other on the blackened room in front of them. Mimbi nudged towards the door again and Hermione repeated her response, firmer this time. "I'm not going in there, Mimbi."_

"_Leave us." A familiar voice came from inside the room, ringing out loudly into the hallway where they stood. As ordered, Mimbi let go of the doorknob and darted away from the room, disappearing further down the corridor. Hermione froze. The voice had definitely come from the room, which meant someone was in there waiting for her. She felt for her wand through the thin fabric of her pants pocket and began to withdraw it. "You won't be needing that." The voice informed her flatly. "Come in. We have much to discuss and not nearly enough time."_

_The more he spoke, the easier it became to place the voice with a face. "Malfoy?" Hermione called into the room, still remaining outside. Despite his warning, she had pulled out her wand and held it down by her side._

"_Are we back on a last name basis? I wasn't aware." He remarked before repeating, "Come in."_

_Hermione tightened her grip on the wand. If this was just a dream, nothing could hurt her, but even so, she felt herself begin to tremble as the torches lighting the corridor's walls flickered ominously around her. "I'm dreaming. None of this is real. You're not real."_

_He laughed, the sound rumbling out through the darkness and reaching her ears quicker than she thought possible. "If none of this is real, then what harm is there in chatting with an old friend?"_

_His question threw her off guard. Was there someone else in there with him? Harry perhaps? One of the Weasley's? Maybe he even had her parents sitting in the room with him. But as she thought it over again, she realized he must have been referring to himself. "You're no friend, Malfoy."_

"_Ah, such cruelty, I see. And what have I done to deserve such a response? Have I wounded you in some way?" He was toying with her and despite Hermione knowing it was all a dream, it was her only way to vent her current emotions on the matter._

"_You've joined them!" She shouted. "I tried to help you! I stuck my neck out for you, twice! With the Order and then with the scum you were _entertaining_ at your home. But you didn't care what I had done." Hermione's fist was shaking down by her side as the one clutching her wand rose to aim blindly into the darkened room._

_It didn't seem to bother him, or perhaps she was aiming entirely away from him. She couldn't tell, but as he responded, it still sounded as though he was sitting directly in the center of the room. "I've told you all of this before. I had no choice. You're not here to discuss this."_

"_It's a dream. I can discuss anything I'd like." Hermione spat out sharply._

_She heard movement coming from inside the room, a shifting sound as though someone were getting up off a piece of furniture. She steadied her stance and braced herself for an assault. "True, very true. At least it would be…" His voice was moving, gliding from one side of the room to the other, impossibly fast. She couldn't keep track of where he was supposed to be standing and as she tried to guide her wand in the direction that she thought the voice was coming from, Hermione finally gave up and settled on the center of the room again._

"_What are you getting at, Malfoy?" Hermione questioned loudly, the new surge of fear-based adrenaline forcing the words out of her throat rougher than she had intended._

_He laughed again, this time a deeper, slower chuckle than she was used to. It sounded almost cryptic. "It would be, if this were in fact _a dream_." Hermione shook her head but before she could argue against him, he continued to call out to her from the depths of the room. "You didn't answer my owl, Miss Granger… and in your absence, I've been very…" he drew out the length of his words, knowing she was hanging on every syllable as she tried to squint some sight into the shadows where he stood. "Very busy."_

_Her voice began to waver as she took a single step forward, the tip of her toe just barely crossing over the door's threshold as her wand arm extended out further. "What are you—"_

"_This is no dream, Hermione." He announced coldly. The lights to the room suddenly flashed on, bright and blinding in contrast to the previous darkness that her eyes had just barely begun to adjust to. She blinked away the light's dazzling effects but the sights that found her weren't at all what she wanted to see. Red covered the room, a deep, sickeningly dark crimson shade. It ran over the expensive flooring, down the beautifully painted walls, and was all but soaked into the cushions and fabrics of the elegant furniture sitting in the center of the room. Lucius was standing just as she thought him to be, amongst all the slaughter and blood, his hands drenched in the sticky liquid all the way up to his elbows. Her eyes darted all over the room, examining in a matter of seconds what appeared to be bits and pieces of a body, if not multiple. She began to feel dizzy and although she knew this was only a dream, the rotten stench of the dismembered corpses assaulted the delicate senses of her nose, forcing her eyes to water. It took only half a moment longer before she narrowed in on one of the chunks of flesh and spotted it. Sparkling despite being sprinkled with drops of blood, Hermione noticed a familiar ring still attached to a severed hand lying only a few feet from the doorway. She knelt down in a panic, recognizing the piece of jewelry immediately as she lifted the hand off the floor. It was her mother's. "This is no dream." She heard Malfoy repeat, just as detached and chilling as moments ago. Hermione dropped the hand and lifted her eyes off the stained floor. To Malfoy's right stood Crabbe and Macnair, and to his left was Carrow. "This is a nightmare," he finished._

_They were all smiling down at her— twisted, sadistic smiles. Hermione hurried up to her feet, the knees of her pants now stained with the blood that had transferred onto them from the floor. She shot off a quick spell into the room to distract them; it was her only hope of getting away when she was so outnumbered. But as she stepped back out into the corridor, she collided face first into a bony, emaciated chest. The impact matched with the slick layer of fresh blood that she had tracked out on the soles of her shoes forced her backwards, tripping down to the floor as she landed roughly back into the room of slaughter. She scrambled for her wand, trying to reposition it securely in her hand as it had been knocked out of her grasp during the fall. Her eyes tore away from the room, the blood, the pieces of her mother that surrounded her, and focused solely on the figure standing over her. The long dark cloak seemed to drape over his skeletal form as the red slits of his eyes bore down into her with such unmatched hatred. The torches in the hallway began to flicker and extinguish, one by one, as she heard the curse begin to rattle through his chest and up out of his throat. "Avada!…"_

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><p>The Weasleys were all gathered in the heart of the Burrow— the kitchen. Hours had passed since Hermione had woken up from her nightmare. Her screams and cries must not have carried throughout the house as effectively as the previous night, as she only saw half of the Weasleys residents staring at her when she finally forced her eyes open. Even so, as she sat at the kitchen table and picked at the breakfast Mrs. Weasley had prepared for everyone, Hermione couldn't help but notice every time someone would yawn or rub at their eyes tiredly. "I'm sorry about this morning. I'm trying to work on it." She announced to no one in particular, and they all seemed to know exactly what she was referring to.<p>

"It's quite alright, dear. We're just concerned, is all." Mrs. Weasley smiled down at her as she replaced the empty plate of toast at the center of the table with a fresh batch. The boys grabbed them up quickly without any further comment.

It was Ginny who decided to continue the conversation. "You weren't sleeping well after the war, before you left."

"Ginny," Mrs. Weasley began to scold her, shaking her head quickly as if to say the topic was off limits.

"I just meant, that was years ago. Has it always been like this, all this time?" The room seemed to quiet as everyone paused to listen to Hermione's response.

Hermione felt her cheeks flush a deep pink. She nodded. "There's been good night and bad nights here and there, but the majority of the time…yeah."

"What do you dream about?" Ginny asked.

Mrs. Weasley stepped in again. "Ginny, that's enough." Hermione heard Ginny begin to explain that she was only curious, that it was an innocent enough question, but as Hermione thought of the answer, an image from last night's dream recollected in her thoughts and clouded reality. She was back in the crimson room, her knees still planted in a puddle of blood beneath her. It felt cold and wet, sticky as she tried to shift back onto her feet. She lost her balance and ended up tipping forward with her hands stretched out in front of her. The palms met with the pool of liquid on the floor and as she drew them back up to her, turning her hands to face her, they were covered in red just like the knees of her pants. The smell of iron and rust washed over her, forcing her to try to hold her breath against the offensive odor, and that was when she saw it. The hand with her mother's wedding ring was lying on the floor in front of her. Hermione looked away, not wanting to think of how it managed to become separated from the rest of the body. 'Had they used magical means, as humanely as possible, or was it more of a ritualistic slaughter? Or was it just for…' Hermione choked on the thought. '_Fun?_' She closed her eyes and tried to escape this room, this memory, this dream.

"Ginny, that's enough. Go get your things or we'll be late for the dress fitting." Mrs. Weasley's scolding brought Hermione back to reality, away from the flashback and the bitter nightmare. Ginny took another bite of her breakfast before running up the stairs to get ready. Mrs. Weasley shook her head and softly fretted, "That girl…She takes after you, Arthur. Entirely."

Mr. Weasley laughed as he folded up his newspaper. "Yes dear." He nodded, still chuckling. "Well, if I sit here any longer, you girls won't be the only late ones." Though Harry had already left for work an hour prior, Mr. Weasley caught sight of the clock hanging on the nearest wall and stood from the table to kiss Mrs. Weasley good-bye. "Will you be going out with them today, Hermione? Though dress fittings aren't exactly my sort of interest, I've heard they can be quite entertaining." He smiled wide as he began collecting his things for work. Obviously a dress fitting wasn't ever referred to as '_entertaining'_ but he was trying his best to make such a tiring task sound at least slightly enticing.

Hermione hadn't thought of what plans she would have for the day, but after how long it took for them to find her a bride's maid's dress yesterday, the last thing she wanted to do was spend another day stuffed up in a dress shop, this time watching Ginny try on dresses. It was exciting for Molly since Ginny was her only daughter, but from an outsiders view, it seemed like that excitement would fade after the first hour. Hermione smiled back with a small shrug. "Actually, I think I'll stay here. I've got some job listings that I'd like to look over."

"A job?" Mrs. Weasley asked, both surprised and proud of Hermione's quick determination to succeed. "How wonderful! What sort of job were you thinking of?"

Hermione shrunk back slightly in her seat. "I'm not too sure actually. Just something to keep me busy, I suppose. Something educational perhaps, but I'll have to take my exams first, since I didn't actually get to finish my last year at Hogwarts."

The Weasley couple nodded in agreement. "Good plan. I believe there's still a set of Percy's old Seventh year textbooks upstairs if you'd like to look them over. As for an actual job, I'm sure the Ministry would be thrilled to have you, if you'd like to go that route." Mr. Weasley beamed proudly as he grabbed the last of his work items and slipped on his light outer cloak.

"Thanks, Mr. Weasley." Hermione said before he left the Burrow. Ginny came back down the stairs and met with her mother. The pair quickly finished cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast and bid Hermione farewell with the promise that they wouldn't be gone as long as yesterday.

"It's just a fitting, dear. Shouldn't take but an hour, two at the most." Mrs. Weasley had remarked, earning a polite nod from Hermione. "There's food in the kitchen should you get hungry." She added, despite just serving breakfast. Her maternal nature seemed to give her an uncontrollable urge to feed any guests that stayed at the Burrow.

"Thanks, Mrs. Weasley." Hermione said, giving them both a wave from the front doorway before she was finally alone. She let out a heavy breath that she didn't realize she had been holding and looked around the room for where she should begin. Taking Mr. Weasley's suggestion, she headed upstairs to try to find Percy's old set of school books.

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><p>The Ministry workers arrived later than Lucius had expected. Part of him thought they would be knocking at his door at the crack of dawn just to spite him further, but when they came strolling by half an hour past eleven, he decided they had chosen this seemingly mid-day visit in an effort to perhaps interrupt his lunch. Mimbi showed them into his home, eyeing each one carefully every time they began examining or touching various items along their way to the second floor. Malfoy was waiting for them. "Arthur." He greeted Mr. Weasley coldly.<p>

"Lucius. I trust you slept well since we last met." Mr. Weasley forced out a smile as his fellow ministry workers began to spread out down the hallway, going in pairs of two into each of the rooms.

Malfoy tried to ignore the fact that they were beginning to tear into his home yet again and focused in on Mr. Weasley. "Is this going to be an everyday routine, Weasley? Or will I be getting my peace back at some point? I was under the assumption that good behavior would be rewarded, not investigated."

Arthur shot the blonde wizard a judging glance. "Guilty conscience, Malfoy?" His arms crossed over his chest as he questioned Lucius.

The blonde wizard resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead, grit his teeth back behind his tightened lips and forced them into a halfhearted smirk. "Not at all. However, I do have a life to continue with, so if you'll excuse me for a moment, I have business to attend to elsewhere." Lucius began to turn away from Arthur and the men still working in the hallway before a nagging thought got the better of him. He raised a warning eyebrow and announced in a loud enough voice for everyone nearby to hear, "I won't be gone longer than a few minutes. If I find anything missing in that time, I'll be sure to bring my concerns directly to the Minister himself." His eyes darted back to Arthur's as he raised his hand to point sharply at the red-haired man's chest. "I'll have your job stripped away from you if I find anything missing. I'll not have thieves in my home, Weasley."

Arthur straightened up, pulling his body back away from Malfoy's accusing finger, and remarked suggestively, "We've seen the kind of wizards you allow into your home, Malfoy. Azkaban's been treating them very_ kindly_."

Malfoy frowned in frustration at the man's irritating smiles and insults before exiting the corridor, grabbing Mimbi roughly by the back of her skinny neck as he passed her. She let out a short yelp as he dragged her away from the ministry workers, especially Arthur Weasley, and pulled her into one of the few empty rooms left on the second floor. He closed the door shut and let go of his loyal house elf. The room seemed to be some sort of storage closet, mostly unused, although Mimbi still managed to keep it fairly organized and dust-free. She brought her palm up to massage the back of her neck where his hand had been and jumped slightly when he turned away from the door to face her. "I don't know how long these imbeciles are going to be here. It could be all day. I won't have time to send off another owl and even if I did, I've been given the impression that Miss Granger won't be interested in receiving it."

Mimbi nodded carefully, understanding his concerns but not fully understanding what role she played in the matter. Malfoy reached into the inner breast pocket of his cloak and retrieved a sealed and addressed envelope. "Bring this letter to Miss Granger and don't leave until she reads it. Is that understood?" Mimbi nodded again, her eyes wide as she recited her instructions in her head to commit them to memory. "I need to be sure she's not going to talk about what she saw the other night and the only way to do that is to get her here. Do you understand? You need to get her to come here tonight." He forced the envelope into the house elf's hands and the order was placed. Mimbi tucked the letter into a small pocket of her raggedy garment and gave Malfoy one last nod before hurrying out of the room.

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><p>Finding the stack of old school books was the difficult part, but once she had finally located them, Hermione drove right in. She curled up on one end of the sofa downstairs in the living room and began to skim over the pages. She had of course read the books before, having skipped ahead in her reading material during her last couple of years at Hogwarts, but it was good to refresh. The more she read, the higher her confidence rose that she would be able to pass the exams with flying colors. Still, it was unnerving to take an exam without even completely the courses. Although Ron didn't necessarily need to have finished his schooling to join the Quidditch team, surely Harry must have been required to take the exams before the Ministry would take him in. <em>'He's the boy who lived, Hermione. He defeated a dark wizard in front of hundreds of people. Do you really think a few exams would have stopped the ministry from giving him a job?'<em> Hermione mulled over her thoughts and decided she would ask Harry tonight if he had taken the exams. Some first-hand knowledge of how rigid or lenient the scoring system was would be good to have if she planned to take the exams based on the textbooks alone.

She was just cracking into the second book—potions, when there came a knock on the front door. Hermione grabbed her wand off the small table beside the stack of books and quietly walked over to the nearest window. The Weasleys hadn't mentioned anything about visitors before they left that morning. She felt her heart beat quicken in her chest and pressed her cheek against the window's glass pane, trying to see around the side of the house, but she couldn't get a clear view of the front steps. The knock repeated, louder this time, nearly making Hermione jump. She rose her wand, keeping it at the ready, and approached the door. She yanked it open. Mimbi was beaming up at her, happy to see her after not seeing her for what seemed like forever in the little house elf's mind. When she caught sight of Hermione's wand however, she jumped back, down the steps and threw her hands up into the air nervously. Embarrassed and feeling slightly ashamed for startling the poor elf, Hermione quickly tucked her wand away. "Oh! I'm sorry, Mimbi. I wasn't expecting you." Mimbi relaxed and reproached the door with a forgiving glow in her cheeks. "Is everything okay?" Hermione asked, suddenly curious as to why Mimbi was standing at the Weasley's doorsteps.

Mimbi pulled out the slightly crinkled letter and handed it to Hermione. "For you."

"Oh, Mimbi…I'm really not…" Hermione started to explaining, handing the letter back to her, but she wouldn't take it. Instead, she tucked her hands behind her back and nodded towards the letter again, urging her to read it. Hermione knew how stubborn Mimbi could be and if she was dead set on getting Hermione to read that letter, she would stand there all day until she did. With a soft groan, Hermione tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter. It was short, incredibly short, and as Hermione read it over, she felt the urge to rip it into bits and sprinkle it on the ground.

_**I need to speak with you. This is very important.**_

_**8:00pm tonight, at the Manor.**_

_**Don't be late.**_

He hadn't even bothered signing it, and yet he somehow assumed that she would be completely available whenever he called upon her. Hermione crumpled the letter up into a ball and handed it back to Mimbi. "I'm not some owl who'll come whenever he calls." Mimbi took the balled up piece of parchment, looking down at it in her hands, unsure of what to do with it. Hermione continued. "I have no interest in seeing him tonight. You can tell him I said that. Tell him I'm busy, that I have somewhere to be and that I'm not canceling my plans just because he needs to _speak with me_." Hermione repeated the wording he had used, trying to mimic his aristocratic tone as best as she could. In truth, she had no where to be, but it was meant to strengthen her point that he couldn't simply summon her whenever he wished.

Mimbi shook her head quickly. "No. Miss Granger must come. Master Malfoy needs you tonight." She held up the crumbled letter and pointed at it before emphasizing, "Tonight. Master Malfoy said you must."

Hermione pulled her arms over his chest, insulted even further that he would dare use such commanding words in regards to her, as if she were herself a house elf for him to order around. "Well then that's unfortunate for him."

"Master Malfoy said you must." Mimbi tried again, shaking her head as she tried to get Hermione to see the importance. She wasn't sure how much she was allowed to say and with Lucius not giving her any guidelines to go on except to just somehow get her there, she was left to her own devices. "Wizards all over the Manor." She was still shaking her head, trying to make her words as clear as possible. "Ministry wizards. Mimbi cleaned all night." She lifted her calloused hands, still dirty from cleaning the entire first floor that the ministry workers had trashed the day before. "Ministry," the little house elf strained.

Hermione's eyes narrowed, confused by Mimbi's jumbled message. "What's the ministry doing at the manor? What has he done? It's only been a day…what could he have possibly done in a day?"

The house elf drew her hands back up and tried to correct her. "No, no. No trouble. Ministry." Hermione shook her head in disbelief. If Malfoy wasn't in trouble, then why was the Ministry at the manor? And why was Mimbi so upset about it? Something wasn't right and Hermione knew it all stemmed from Malfoy, whether Mimbi would admit it or not. She sighed out her frustration and apparated to the front gates of the Manor. Mimbi followed closely behind her with a sharp Pop!

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><p>Mimbi tried to explain again once they were inside the manor that Malfoy wasn't in any trouble, but that there were Ministry workers still in the manor. It wasn't until they reached the second floor that Mimbi was able to point at a passing worker and exclaimed, "Ministry!"<p>

They rounded a corner and as if it had gone from night to day, the empty corridors they had been walking down were suddenly replaced with a crowded, busy hallway littered with various items from all sorts of different rooms. Hermione stared around at the scene. It looked like a raid. "What has he done?" She breathed out in disbelief. Mimbi continued to shake her head down by Hermione's side. They walked down the long corridor, peering into each room as they passed, until Hermione spotted the tall wizard with long platinum blonde hair. "What have you done?"

He spun around, her familiar voice catching him off guard as he stood there watching his entire second level get trashed. His eyes darted down to Mimbi, who was slinking back behind Hermione slightly. She had been told to deliver the message and make sure Hermione arrived that night, not now when the manor was filled with all sorts of chaos. Did the simple house elf truly think they could speak about his involvement with the VRS with all these ministry officials around? He took a mental note to deal with the insolent little creature later. "This isn't a good time. I thought I made myself clear enough that I wished to see you at eight." He said sternly, trying to draw as little attention to her arrival as possible.

Hermione scoffed at his domineering assumptions just as she had done when she first read the letter. But there was a bigger issue at hand. "What have you done, Malfoy?" She repeated, hardening her voice as her eyes shifted around at all the ministry workers.

Overtired and with his patience already becoming strained by the ministry's second unjustified inspection, Lucius paced over to Hermione and grabbed her firmly by the upper arm. "I haven't **done** anything." He began walking them back in the direction they had come. "Take Miss Granger to the first floor's study and I'll be there as soon as I take care of things here." He directed Mimbi.

"No!" Hermione pulled her arm away. Lucius let it go. "If you've done nothing wrong then what's all of this?" She kicked at a pile of discarded objects that had been placed by a nearby doorway. "What are they looking for?" He was shaking his head again but just as he was about to repeat his statement of innocence, Hermione caught sight of someone coming out of a room further down the corridor. "What…Mr. Weasley?" She sidestepped away from Lucius and walked quickly down the hallway to approach him.

Mr. Weasley looked confused. His eyes shifted from Hermione to Lucius. "Hermione, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be back at the Burrow."

Lucius followed Hermione and met with Mr. Weasley only seconds after Hermione had reached him. "What's the matter, Weasley? Didn't expect to have an audience as you raided my home?"

Arthur's eyes narrowed as he shot a glare at Lucius. Before either men could continue with what was sure to turn into a shouting match, Hermione stepped in. "Mr. Weasley, what are _you _doing here?" Hermione looked around at the dismembered rooms, the items and even the furniture spewed out all over the floor, and couldn't see a single muggle item in the whole lot. Muggle Studies were his specialty, not home inspections.

He began to explain but it became obvious from the start that he had no solid answer. "The Ministry has been short staffed lately. I'm filling in where I can."

Lucius exaggerated a burst of laughter as if Arthur had made a joke. "And what have you found? Absolutely nothing. I've done nothing and I'm in possession of nothing. Therefore, this inspection is unfounded."

"Under the rehabilitation program you agreed to, Malfoy, both regularly scheduled and unannounced inspections are permitted." Mr. Weasley corrected him.

Hermione watched as the two men exchanged coarse tones and insulting glares at one another. When Lucius brought up, rather loudly, the fact that this was the second all-day _'inspection'_ that he had been subjected to in the past two days, Hermione couldn't make sense of it. She cut them both off. "But what are you looking for?"

Mr. Weasley frowned. "Illegal items and objects of dark magic. Any contraband that Mr. Malfoy here isn't by law allowed to possess with his current status."

She shook her head. "No, I've been here during an inspection. It isn't…" she glanced around the room. "Like _this_." Every room this far into the second level of the manor had been gone through, thrown about, and then left in shambles. There were so many workers darting in and out of doorways that she couldn't even count them with absolute certainty, and apparently all of this had been done just yesterday to the first floor. Now it made sense why Mimbi was so upset and why she had showed Hermione her dirty hands. The poor house elf had finished rearranging the first level and now the second was being destroyed right before their eyes. "Who ordered this?" She asked, more so out of disbelief than by any sort of anger.

"Hermione, this is official Ministry business. I'm sorry if this seems unfamiliar to you, but Mr. Malfoy is under the supervision and moderation of the Ministry for his past offenses. This is what he agreed to when he decided not to go to Azkban with the rest of Voldemort's supporters."

She understood. She could comprehend that by joining the rehabilitation program, Lucius had given up most of his rights as an ordinary wizard, including the privacy of his own home, but what she couldn't understand was _why_. What had he done? As far as she knew, she was the only one who knew about him joining the VRS, so this raid couldn't possibly be because of that. What offenses had he committed recently that would give them reason to believe that he now held some sort of dark item that he wasn't supposed to have. "Have you found anything?" She asked.

Malfoy smirked and shifted in his stance as he prodded on the ministry employee. "Yes, go on, Arthur. Tell her what you and your crew have found." He raised an eyebrow, knowing the Weasley father had no way of talking his way out of this one.

"We've confiscated several items suspected to be of unsavory purposes." Mr. Weasley answered stiffly, trying to sound as official as he could.

"Unsavory?" Lucius mocked. "Family keepsakes. Photo albums. Books. My son's old _Quidditch robes_." He shook his head as the last example hit harder than the previous ones and Hermione saw him swallow down what looked to be a bothersome lump just barely beginning to form in his throat. As quickly as she had seen it, it was gone and he was back to scowling at the red-haired man.

Arthur brought a hand up to rub at one of his temples and snapped back at him. "You know just as well as I do, Malfoy, how dark wizards operate. Nothing is sacred when it comes to laying curses and hiding an object's true purpose."

Lucius ran his fingers through his long blonde hair and gave Arthur one final smirk. "If that's what you need to tell yourself, Weasley, then by all means, don't let me correct you."

To Malfoy's surprise, Mr. Weasley looked down at his watch and frowned. "It's getting late. Let's pack things up." He announced to the workers in the rooms around them and just like that, they began exiting the rooms with items tucked away in large bins that had been sitting by the doors. "Keep everything organized so it can be properly sorted and labeled." He advised before turning back to Hermione. "I don't know why you came here today, but you're making a terrible mistake if you think you can trust Lucius Malfoy." The concerned look was written all over his face.

She wanted to correct him, tell him that she could take care of herself and that she didn't need anyone to tell her who to trust, especially since Lucius was so low down on her list at the current time, but she couldn't be that rude. Mr. Weasley had given her an open invitation to his home, she was going to be a brides maid at his only daughter's wedding, and together they had all defeated a powerful Dark Lord. To turn on him now because he insisted that he was only doing his job when Hermione knew different would seem petty compared to everything he had done for her. She simply nodded and watched as they all packed up and shipped out of Malfoy Manor.

When Hermione and Lucius were the last ones left in the now abandoned, disheveled corridor, Lucius breathed out a sigh of relief. "They would have been here hours longer if you hadn't showed up."

Hermione frowned. If that was as close to a _'Thank you,_' as he was going to give, then she would take it in full. "You're welcome," she responded sarcastically. "Is this why you wanted me here? To scare them off? I would have thought you could have done that by yourself."

The corners of his lips twitched subconsciously into a smile at her remark. "No, not at all." He shot a sideways glance at his house elf, still standing further down at the beginning of the corridor. "I wasn't expecting you until later tonight." He allowed himself to bring the conversation back to its intended purpose. "When you didn't respond to my owl, I was concerned. I had hoped that I didn't— to use your words, scare you off."

Hermione didn't know how to respond. She knew what she wanted to say, everything, but she couldn't think of where to start. Had he _scared her off_? What did he expect her to say when only nights ago, his buddies had not only threatened but also attempted to kill her. Did he really believe she could somehow overlook that? Hermione said the first thing that came to mind. "You _**joined**_ them. You've picked the wrong side…again, and you expect me to forgive that small fact? I'm not like you, Malfoy. I can't switch off my morals when they become inconvenient for me. It doesn't work like that."

"I did join them." He admitted. "They have my son. What would you have me do? Fight against him should it come to that? If it came to war and I had joined the Order instead, let's say I were to encounter him during battle. Do you truly think I could strike down my own flesh and blood?" He shook his head and knew he didn't need to vocalize his answer. It was obvious enough.

"I don't know what you want with me, Malfoy." Hermione confessed, frustrated that he wasn't being as clear with her as she had wanted him to be. He had always been straight forward, an open book, especially during their conversations in the library, but now he was different. He wasn't speaking as honestly with her and it was making her uneasy.

Lucius hesitated. It wasn't like him to falter but she had asked something he truly couldn't provide an answer for. He had asked her here tonight because he was concerned about what she knew. He was concerned she would eventually let the Order know that he had joined the VRS and that he had entertained inappropriate guests according to his rehabilitation regulations, but he couldn't tell her that. "Just give me tonight to apologize for the other night. That's all I'm asking. After that, you can choose not to speak to me for however long you'd like."

"I can do that now." Hermione corrected him.

"Yes…" Lucius agreed, not fully wanting to admit it, but drew her back to his original point. "I'm not certain what you'd like me to do, Hermione. I'm here, offering you my apology and asking for forgiveness for what happened the other night. Are you telling me you won't accept it?"

Hermione knew she couldn't accept it, not with him still taking up arms with the enemy. An apology would mean nothing if he still refused to join the just side, the light side. "I can't possibly accept it, not when I know where your true allegiance lies."

Malfoy ran his fingers through his hair as he felt their conversation going around on a loop. As long as he was with the VRS, and she was with the Order, there could be no peace between them. "We've been through this already. What would you have me do? Abandon my son for a group that would rather kill me than allow me to join their ranks?"

"Then join neither." Hermione exclaimed. Lucius eyed her with uncertainty. "Join _both_." She explained. "It's possible. Professor Snape did exactly that." She reminded him.

Lucius nearly spat at the idea. "Severus was a fool. And in case you've somehow forgotten the most important fact in all of this, he's dead. Looks like the _'Join both sides'_ idea didn't exactly work out well for him."

The young witch stayed firm. "That's my only offer. We remain in contact, with you feeding me information to take with me to the Order, and in exchange, I won't force your allegiance with the VRS into the Ministry's view."

He was trapped, backed into a corner by something as simple as blackmail. He had been worried this entire time about her telling the Order and yet there she stood, blatantly blackmailing him for information. _'Not very Gryffindor of you, Miss Granger,'_ he mused silently. A thought passed through him as he remember what he had said about fighting Draco during any upcoming battles, and he wondered if perhaps she would feel the same way about the elder Malfoy male. They weren't blood of course, which was the main dividing point in the two scenarios, but would her righteous Gryffindor nature allow her to potentially kill someone she was meant to become so close with? Her very own informant, with whom she had already expressed numerous private memories, fears, and dreams with. She couldn't, and _that_ was his way in. If it comes to the point of battle, she couldn't possibly let harm come to him, could she? It was too bittersweet to think of. "Should we come to war, my side against _yours_, do you truly think you'd be able to strike me down? This could go on for years." He paused, trying to gauge the expression on her face. She knew exactly what he was trying to say.

It took her longer to answer than it should have. Inwardly, she cursed herself for not answering immediately, possibly even before he had finished talking, but her damned Gryffindor spirit gave her doubt. Lucius chuckled, smirking as he knew he was right. She couldn't do it and therefore, he would gain some degree of protection, as little as it was, by agreeing to become an informant. Hermione's eyes narrowed in as her lips pressed tightly together. He was laughing at her, at her weakness, at her unyielding kindness, and it made her want to prove him wrong. "I could." She finally answered, and when he continued to smirk while staring at her, not believing her words, she corrected herself. "I **will.**"

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Ugh, I love the toughness that Lucius always seems to bring out of Hermione! She's pretty tough on her own but when the two of them get together, it's like two bulls locked at the horns! Anyway, let me know what you think. This upcoming week will be very busy for me but I'm hoping to have Chapter 26 uploaded within the week, if not sometime over the weekend.<strong>_

_**Thank you for all the lovely reviews and PMs. I absolutely love reading them and hearing what you all think :) So thank you.**_

_**-WildBubblesRoam**_


	26. Chapter 26

_**Author's Notes: I kept this chapter a little shorter, cutting it off where I did because Chapter 27 is going to have a lot going on. So pardon the semi-short chapter but hopefully it's still somewhat enjoyable :) Thank you for all the amazing reviews. You all are so sweet and I really appreciate each and every one of you. Your reviews get me so pumped. Thank you!**_

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><p>Chapter 26<p>

"You do realize the fault in this scheme of your's, don't you?" Lucius calmly began as he stood beside the bulky wooden desk in the library. His fingertips worked at swirling a spoon smoothly around in small circles, stirring his cup of tea carefully before placing the spoon down on the tray beside it. He lifted his cup, along with another equally filled one to his left, and brought them both over to the familiar cushy sofa. Hermione accepted the cup but placed it down on the coffee table in front of her instead of taking a sip. Lucius noticed and nearly rolled his eyes at the small yet offensive action. _'Does she think I'd be foolish enough to slip something into the damned tea?'_ He kept his thoughts to himself. As he sat down on his end of the sofa however, he picked her cup back up and swapped it out for his own. "I don't take sugar with my tea." He warned as he took a sip from the cup originally meant for her.

Hermione blushed slightly at his blunt behavior. Though she wasn't necessarily trying to be discrete in her refusal to drink anything he had prepared for her, she wasn't fully expecting him to call her out on it so plainly. "It's fine. Thank you." As the last words left her lips, she felt herself cringe inwardly. _'Thank you? The tea, you don't trust, but him-Him! You'll thank. Priorities, Hermione…'_

"You look tired." He interrupted her self-scolding thoughts and as she looked over at him, she realized he had been staring at her, examining her briefly as he spoke.

"Because I am." She confirmed. "You don't look much better." Hermione pointed out, finally bringing the cup of tea up to her lips. It was strong, as he had warned, but the amount of milk he had replaced the sugar with balanced it out well enough.

Lucius shook his head before he vocalized his response. "I didn't sleep well, as you can imagine. Yesterday's _inspection_, if you can really call it that, lasted much longer than I had expected."

Hermione's curiosity sparked. "I've been here during normal inspections. They weren't anything like that. Did this just start? Maybe it's new procedure that they have to follow."

In a small way, she was trying to defend Mr. Weasley for leading the inspections both yesterday and today. Lucius took notice and corrected her. "They've done this before. Not Weasley, but some other minion of the Ministry. This was back when I first agreed to the idea of rehabilitation." He leaned back against the sofa, resting his cup gently in his hand on the armrest and continued. "I'm sure you can understand, not everyone was happy to welcome me. The first week after everything was finalized and I was able to return to my home, the ministry raids began. One, every other day, for the entirety of that week."

It was an exhausting time; she could see that much written on his face as he recalled the past incidents. "What made it finally stop?" Hermione asked.

Lucius chuckled, obviously finding some sort of humor in the whole situation that Hermione seemed to miss. "My first probation hearing, believe it or not. I'm not sure if they simply got bored of tearing my home apart, or if I had somehow said what they wanted to hear, but after my first hearing was concluded and I was free to leave, the only inspections I had to deal with were of the ordinary, less intrusive sort." He motioned vaguely in her direction and added, "The kind you've witnessed. Quick in and out."

"And the items they've taken… Mr. Weasley said that they could have things hidden in them. Spells or magical properties."

Malfoy cut her off before she could ask, shaking his head firmly as he answered. "He was making an excuse for taking what he thought I valued the most. He knew that I hold my family above all else, so he had those items confiscated."

"So there isn't anything here that you're not supposed to have?" Hermione questioned.

Lucius's eyes scanned over the library's walls, its many tall bookshelves, and the various pieces of furniture that surrounded them. He raised an eyebrow as he turned his sight back to Hermione. "Nothing _here, _no."

She felt offended and intrigued all at once. Offended at the thought that he would dare keep anything illegal still in his home with the Ministry knocking at his door whenever they pleased, but intrigued by why. Why would he keep such things and more importantly, why was he admitting it to_ her_? Nothing good could come of this conversation. She switched the topic entirely, trying to regain control of the conversation. "Tell me about the VRS."

Malfoy had been drinking his tea when her question was asked. His eyebrows lifted as he carefully swallowed and lowered his cup down to his lap. "You work fast. Don't want to waste any time with a little chit-chat?" He teased before nodding shortly and straightening up against the back of the sofa cushions. "Fair enough. What would you like to know?"

Hermione hesitated. What would be most important? What information would be the most valuable when she brings it back to the Order? "Who is the leader?" She finally asked.

Lucius shook his head. "I don't know."

Hermione tried again. "Well then, who are the most prominent members?"

Again, the blonde wizard gave her a flat, "I don't know," and took another casual sip of his tea.

She frowned. This wasn't giving her anything. "Is there a headquarters? Somewhere meetings are held?"

"None that I know of."

She couldn't go back to the Order with nothing, especially after stating so firmly with Malfoy that her goal with him was information, nothing more. This wasn't supposed to be like their previous chats in the library. It was meant to be one-sided and yet he wasn't giving her anything she could work with. "You're lying! This isn't how this works, Malfoy."

"I've only sworn myself to them two days ago. What information would you like me to have gathered in two days?" He shot back.

He was right. She only left the Manor a couple days ago and during his alone-time, the Ministry and Mr. Weasley have been swarming all over him. When could he have possibly had the time to do anything with the VRS? Hermione leaned back against her corner of the sofa. "I'm sorry," she stated half-heartedly. Her trained politeness made her cringe again. _'One step forward and two steps back. If you're trying to convince him that you're only here to gather information, you're doing a terrible job.'_ Hermione regretted her choice of words again. She had always been known for her quick wit and unwavering intelligence. The lack of proper sleep was beginning to get to her more than she thought. "I'm just tired," she mumbled under her breath.

Lucius nodded, acknowledging her words before contributing his own. "I've noticed." He looked her over again, scanning over her face. Though the bags weren't as prominent as when he first spotted her when she returned to the wizarding world, they were beginning to come back. Even her body language showed signs that she was exhausted. Her shoulders slumped slightly, just barely noticeable, and she seemed to sink back into the sofa more often than he had previously known her to do. "Your nightmares have returned?" He was still eyeing her, convinced that his observation was correct, even if she wouldn't admit to it.

Hermione nodded and clarified, "Just recently," as if that somehow made it better.

His eyes were still on her and as he watched her look away, down at the table, over at the base of one of the bookshelves, anywhere just to avoid looking over at him, Lucius tried to prod more information from her. "Tell me about them." He replied calmly, not exactly demanding or allowing force to enter his tone, but it was clear enough that he wasn't asking.

Hermione tried to brush him off. "This isn't what I'm here for. We're not playing your game anymore, Malfoy." She started to shift, almost getting up off the sofa. "If we have nothing else to discuss, then I'll just be go—,"

"No." Lucius stopped her, gently placing a hand on her arm. When she stopped, his hand remained. "No games." He slowly shook his head. She had lifted her sight and met his eyes. They wouldn't leave her, not even when he finally withdrew his hand and sat back against the cushions. "Tell me." He repeated.

She thought about telling him, spilling her guts out in front of this man just for the simple relief it would provide for her, but when she started remembering the actual nightmares, she changed her mind. He had been involved in both night's vivid images. She couldn't even guess how a normal person would react to that kind of information, let alone an ex-death eater. "You really don't want to know, trust me." Hermione warned.

Repeating her choice of words, Lucius replied, "Trust _me._ I do." He downed the last of his tea and placed the cup on the table in front of them. Turning back to Hermione, he tried to reassure her. "Nothing you say can shock me. Though I'm not particularly proud of what I've seen and done in the past, I can assure you that I've seen and done a lot."

That got Hermione thinking. Obviously he was talking about his time under Voldemort's command, but what exactly had he done that he thought could possibly match up with the horrors she saw in her dreams? He did have a point though. If there was anyone she could tell without either offending, scaring, or worrying, it would be him. She tried to think of how to start. The urge for bluntness seemed to stand out and she began to explain. "You were in them. Both of them," she clarified. "The first one was strange. You kept repeating yourself and I couldn't understand why. You just kept asking me how I was feeling. Someone at the door kept interrupting us and every time you went to answer it, it was a death eater- one of the ones that was here the other night." Hermione swallowed, feeling her throat go dry as the memory of the first dream filled her thoughts. "I kept trying to tell you that you were doing the same thing over and over again, but you wouldn't listen. When you went to answer the door the last time, it wasn't the death eater." Malfoy's brows rose slightly as his curiosity began to show. Hermione hesitated. She didn't want to lie about the ending, but didn't feel like he would particularly like it either. She took a deep breath and just spat it out. "It was Voldemort. You let him in and pointed at me, like you were showing him exactly where I was." Lucius frowned. It wasn't exactly as he had expected but it was understandable. "He tried to kill me." Hermione finished.

"Tried?" Lucius questioned.

"Well, I woke up before he could actually do it." Hermione elaborated.

Lucius nodded. "Well, that one's simple enough. You don't trust me, and given my previous allegiances, that would explain why the Dark Lord was the one to walk in. As for why you would have him kill you when I'm just as able has me confused." Hermione scowled down the sofa at him. He worked fast to correct his latter statement. "I meant in the dream. I thought we had already agreed that there's no logical reason for me to hurt you. If there were, do you really think you'd be sitting here right now?" He shook his head, clearly tired of having to reassure her of her safety, especially when it was so obvious. He gestured towards her with a wave of his hand. "What about the other dream?"

That one was tougher to explain. She started off the same, announcing that he was also in that one, and that they were also in the manor, but that Mimbi was guiding her to a room. When Hermione started to explain the blood and gore, the pieces of bodies, and then revealed that at least one of the bodies had belonged to her mother, Malfoy sat silent. She felt a thin glazing of tears at the base of her eyes as she explained the ring and how she had stumbled, falling down into the blood and getting it on her skin and clothes. The stank that overwhelmed the room, the stickiness as it clung to her pants, and again, Voldemort. Hermione brushed the tears away from her eyes before they could roll down her cheeks. She was done explaining, done remembering.

The blonde man sat still as stone as he ran over the dream again in his head. It was nothing like the first one, aside from the fact that himself and Voldemort were present in both, but besides that, they were entirely different nightmares. One had seemed tamer, much less visual and most importantly, it was an attack against herself. This second nightmare had very little to do with any actual physical harm to Hermione. It was centered almost solely on her mother, and by extension, her father as well. He had no way to explain it, nothing to say in response. She was waiting for his opinion, he could see it in her eyes, and even as he began to speak, he knew he was breaching dangerous territory. "Well…" Lucius hissed in a slow breath. "I've never been particularly fond of blood, to be honest."

Hermione froze. _'Did he really just say that?'_ She had just told him of how, in her dream, he had quite possibly murdered and chopped up her mother along with who knows how many other people, and all he could respond with, was that he doesn't like blood? She was dumbfounded. "You…what?" She asked in confusion.

"Blood," Lucius repeated with a raise of his eyebrows. "I've never liked it." He paused as his eyes darkened, drifting away from hers and instead, focusing on a random spot on the floor. "Years ago, after I had been sent to Azkaban and then broke out, Belle and I had gone somewhere to stay off the streets. We couldn't go home yet since the Ministry was still looking for us. We met up with Fenrir Greyback that night and found a place to stay that was away from any cities or neighborhoods, so it would be easier to go unnoticed. It had been muggle populated, which made things easier." When he mentioned muggles, he glanced towards her end of the sofa before quickly looking away, back down at the floor just past the small coffee table. He swallowed and went on. "There was a family in the house. It was late at night and I believe they thought we were burglars." Lucius shook his head, remembering the night as clear as day. "I assumed we were just going to petrify them and then wipe their memories before we left, but once you get Greyback and Belle together, it's hard to bring them to any sort of logical decisions." He shook his head again. This time, his eye brows creased downwards harshly as he scowled at the memory. "Belle took the woman upstairs somewhere, telling her that she loved her home and wanted to see the décor upstairs as well. It was a lie, of course." Lucius explained. "She likes to lull them into a false sense of security. She likes to _play_." Hermione recoiled at his choice of words. Belle had _played_ with Hermione plenty as she carved 'Mudblood' into her arm. Hermione rubbed at the spot on her forearm as she recalled that horrible moment.

Lucius moved on. "Greyback had the children. Two boys, probably ten or eleven years old, though I couldn't say for certain. I didn't see them for very long." His hand reached up to rest his fingers against the side of his face, leaning against it slightly as his elbow pressed against the armrest of the sofa. "I did my part with the man. Believing we were only going to be there for the night, I subdued him and tucked him away in the front closet. But when I went to go find the others, Belle and Greyback had other plans." The blonde wizard dropped his hand back down and lifted his head. His voice had gone flat, monotone, and as he finished, he sounded more robotic than human. "Belle kept things relatively clean but Greyback had torn them to shreds. There was blood on the walls and in the carpet. I swore and told him that we were meant to be staying low, to not draw attention, and that his mess would surely cause more terrible than we needed." Lucius shook his head. "I couldn't tell if my words were really reaching him or not. He was still in a frenzy, excited from the bloodlust. Before I knew what she was doing, Belle shot fire from her wand and the whole room was ablaze. She laughed and had said 'Burn the mess.'"

Hermione sat stiff as a board. "That's…horrible." She finally managed to reply. What could she possibly say in response to such a terrible story?

Lucius nodded, but he wasn't through. "They ran through the house, spreading the fire. As I turned to leave the room, I saw movement from a corner. Greyback hadn't finished with one of the boys and although he had chunks taken out of him and had clearly gone into shock at that point, I could still see him breathing and shivering, despite the heat of the flames. The fire was all around him and I knew he wouldn't last, even if I did somehow try to save him." Lucius passed another quick glance at Hermione. Her eyes were wide with… _'Fear? Shock? Hatred?'_ Lucius wondered. He had to look away. He couldn't say the rest while she stared at him like that. "I killed him and let the house burn."

She thought perhaps there was more. Maybe he would somehow connect the story and make it come full circle. That he had missed and that the boy had lived and one day ran into him on the street. Perhaps it began to rain after they fled, saving the house and anyone who they thought to be dead, but had actually survived. But as she waited for more to be told, nothing came. Lucius remained silent, his back stiff against the cushions and his eyes fixed forward aimlessly. Hermione realized the story was over and that there was nothing left to tell. It had ended horribly and he wasn't planning on saying anything that would make it somehow end any better. "Why are you telling me this?" She asked.

Malfoy finally brought his eyes back to hers. They had changed, lightened, gone back to their normal glow and intensity. He shrugged casually and rose from the sofa to refresh his cup of tea. "You shared something with me that was private and that you've never told anyone before. I wanted to do the same." He poured more tea into his cup and began to fix it to his taste.

Hermione watched him curiously as he poured in a bit of milk, waited for it to spread and settle in the cup, before pouring in a little more and stirring. "Why didn't you tell anyone? Your wife, one of the other death eaters? Even Professor Snape. You both seemed close, from what I could tell."

Lucius brought his tea back over to the sofa and sat down. He noticed that she watched him every step of the way, keeping her eyes on him as he sat back down and placed the cup on the table. She seemed intrigued and it made him smile, if only briefly. He leaned back against the sofa and draped an arm over the back, turning towards her slightly. "I didn't tell anyone for the same reason you haven't told anyone about those nightmares. I was afraid of what they would think, how they would react. I didn't want to be treated any differently, for better or for worse."

Hermione pondered over his answer. It made sense, but something was still bothering her. "But why now, why tell me?"

"I believe, for the same reason you told me, Miss Granger. You knew you wouldn't be judged by what you've told me. You knew I wouldn't change how I view you." He smiled but when she didn't return the gesture, it gave him pause. "Am I wrong?"

At first, she wanted to say yes. She wanted to shout it at him, and tell him that of course she was judging him. The story he told had absolutely nothing to do with her nightmares, and more importantly, they were true. He had done the things he had said and for that, he could never gain forgiveness, not from her or from anyone else. Her thoughts calmed and she focused on what exactly he was asking. Would she judge him for sharing this part of him with her? She had always judged him, since the day they had met. She judged him for his hatred, for his unearned self-righteousness, and for his harsh reputation as a death eater. But would she judge him any differently now, knowing what she knows? _'Of course not. He's Lucius Malfoy. What else am I to expect from a story of his past than this? I can't judge again what I already have judged for years.'_ Hermione frowned at her reasoning, but she was right. But would she treat him any differently because of the story he's told? Again, no. She sighed at the sudden realization and gave him his answer. "No, you're right." She looked at the clock hanging across the room on the wall and breathed easier when she saw the time. "It's getting late. I need to get back to the Burrow or you'll have a bunch of angry Weasleys pounding on your door." She was joking of course, but she knew at least Ron would come around soon once his father told him that Hermione had been left at the Manor with the notorious blonde ex-death eater.

As she stood, Lucius rose from the sofa quickly after her. "You're welcome to stay." He smiled again and joked, "You seem to be my good luck charm, chasing the Ministry out of my home."

Hermione smiled back but declined. "If I don't get back, I'll never hear the end of it with Ron. He hates that I don't hate you." The words had left her before she could think to stop herself, and she blushed.

Lucius rose an eyebrow cockily and his smile turned quickly to a smirk. "Oh, you don't? Perhaps I'll have to spend less time persuading you into my manor next time then." Hermione rolled her eyes enthusiastically, earning a laugh from Malfoy. Their conversation did remind him though of what he had begun to say when they first entered the library that evening. "There is a problem that you're overlooking with this plan of yours." Hermione perked up. She was almost always incredibly detailed and hardly missed anything, especially when it came to helping the Order. "If you're going to be spending time with me, they're going to know that any information you give, you'll be getting from me. They may be a dull bunch, but they'll make the connection quick enough, and then the blackmail will be entirely out of your hands. I can't afford to place my trust in the Order."

Hermione thought it over quickly. She was so unpracticed in the art of blackmail that she let this little oversight completely slip by her. But before long, she was smiling again. "I won't be spending any time with you. We've had an argument tonight. You called me a mudblood and I left."

Malfoy frowned at her under knitted brows. "But I haven't…"

"But that's what everyone will _think_." Hermione interrupted him, explaining her plan. "They won't know I'll be coming here. They'll think I've been going to the library to study."

"Study?" Lucius questioned curiously. Had he somehow misgauged her age? _'No, surely she is of age, otherwise the Order would never allow her such standing with them.'_ He considered.

Hermione nodded. "Just this morning, before Mr. Weasley left the Burrow, I had told them that I wanted to continue my education and take my exams. I was studying before Mimbi came to get me. It won't raise any suspicions and well, I've always enjoyed spending hours in the library anyway." She shrugged shyly and motioned around the room. "It won't exactly be lying. Technically, I will be in _a _library."

Lucius laughed. "Did you just think of this now?" Hermione agreed with another one of her sweet smiles and he couldn't help but smile back. "It's no wonder you were able to best Draco in nearly every class."

"_Nearly_ every class?" Hermione repeated quickly.

"Well, I do believe Severus was a bit bias when it came to my son." He teased. As the light mood naturally descended to a more normal atmosphere, another thought came to Malfoy's mind. "When should I expect to see you again?" The last thing he needed was for her to pop up when he was in the middle of hosting some _unsavory_ guests, as Mr. Weasley had put them.

Hermione replied with a question of her own. "When will you be seeing any VRS members?"

He hesitated, debating whether or not to hold back. "Tomorrow night, a little after midnight." He finally spoke, though his tone had dropped off. He seemed less interested in the conversation and the more Hermione tried to meet his eyes, the more she noticed him looking away. "We haven't decided on a location yet. He said I would receive an owl an hour or two beforehand. Otherwise, it would be too easy to intercept and the ministry could use it to find him."

"Who?"

Lucius stalled again, but his eyes found their way back to hers. He tried to read into them, to tell if he could truly trust her and although his brain was screaming _'No! No! A thousand times, NO!'_, his mouth didn't listen and before he could take it back, he breathed out, "Draco."

* * *

><p>Hermione apparated further away from the Burrow than usual. She had never been particularly good at lying, especially not to the Weasley's, but she knew she would have to give it her all if she had any chance of this working. Rubbing at her eyes for a few rough seconds, she was convinced they were as pink as she could get them. Dabbing them with a bit of wetness to give the illusion of tears would have been going too far, but she did also redden her nose for the same effect. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, and began walking towards the Burrow. When her hand fell on the door knob, a few strategically placed sniffles escaped her and she closed the door behind her. Though she was correct to assume Harry wasn't home yet, the rest of the Weasley family were. Ron spotted her first. "'Mione, what's wrong?" He had been sitting in the living room with his sister.<p>

"Nothing, Ron. Excuse me." Hermione brought her hand up to her face to rub at her eye once more, and quickly marched up the stairs to the bathroom.

"What the bloody hell was that all about?" Ron exclaimed, turning back to Ginny.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Honestly, do you boys pay any attention, ever? Who did she just go see?"

Recognition flashed over Ron's eyes as he remembered how their father had informed them of Hermione arriving at Malfoy Manor during the inspection. "That bastard! I'll kill him!"

He was already up on his feet and ready to go when Ginny brought him back down to reality. "Do you really think that'll help? She's shut herself in the loo and your brilliant idea is to become a murderer. Really, Ron. What kind of plan is that?"

"What plan?" Mr. Weasley walked into the living room from the kitchen, a plate a freshly baked cookies on a tray in his hands. He placed it down on the table beside the sofa and Ginny took one.

"Hermione's just come back." Ginny answered between nibbles.

"I'm going to kill him!" Ron repeated, this time to his father.

Mr. Weasley shook his head sadly. "I warned her about him. The day anyone can trust a Malfoy, is the day all sanity is lost." He shook his head again and asked, "What has he done?"

Ron and Ginny exchanged a silent glance at one another before Ginny shrugged. "'Don't know. She just came in and went straight upstairs. She seemed upset though."

"Like she had been crying," Ron added, sounding even more offended by whatever Malfoy had done, though he couldn't actually say what that was. Mr. Weasley hummed curiously but only looked mournfully at the stairs leading to the upper levels of the small home. "I should go talk to her." Ron said, eyeing the stairs as well.

"No, son." Mr. Weasley put a hand on his youngest son's shoulder. "Give her some space and she'll come down when she's ready."

Ginny laughed. "Yeah, Ron. You know nothing about women. You'll only make it worse."

Ron scowled at her and muttered, "Shut it!" He plopped back down on the sofa with a pout still on his face and nudged Ginny's arm. "Give me a cookie."

* * *

><p>"I don't want to talk about it, Ron." Hermione was helping Mrs. Weasley make breakfast the following morning while Ron hovered nearby. "I made a mistake, thinking I could change him. That's all."<p>

Hermione brought a set of fresh dishes and utensils to the table while Ron followed closely behind her. "Yeah, but I was just wondering because you were crying and—,"

"I was not!" Hermione's voice rose unexpectedly, gathering a glance or two from Mrs. Weasley. She lowered her voice purposely and repeated firmly. "I was **not** crying, Ronald. And I can take care of myself, thank you very much." Mrs. Weasley leaned her head out of the kitchen and called up the stairs that breakfast was almost ready. Sure enough, the rest of the family came down shortly after. "I'd rather just concentrate on my studies right now. Speaking of which, I'll be going to the library today. Would you like me to pick you up anything?"

Ron scrunched his face in confusion. "At the library? What would I need from the library?" Hermione rolled her eyes and realized she shouldn't have even asked.

* * *

><p>The owl arrived later than Lucius had expected. He read it quickly before burning it and leaving the Manor. It was a vile hole in the wall muggle pub, filled with questionable characters, but it was the safest place they could meet. While he sat at the far end of the bar, waiting for his son to arrive, a woman had walked up to Lucius and helped herself to the seat beside him. She smelled of liquor and sex though Lucius paid her no mind, shifting his chair closer to the wall beside him. She leaned her elbow on the counter, trying to draw his attention, but still, he ignored her. It wasn't until she reached out to touch his long silver blonde hair that Lucius finally addressed her. He reached up to grab her arm by the wrist before she could touch his hair and glared at her. "I desire neither your company nor your services. Now unless you'd like to see how it feels to have six feet of dirt and worms above you, I'd suggest you take your leave." The woman's seductive smile faded as his words hit her. "Quickly." Lucius added, releasing her wrist.<p>

The woman grimaced. "Creep." She recoiled, drawing her hand back to her body and pushed herself off of the stool away from him.

"Muggle." Lucius muttered in the same disgusted tone that the woman had used. He turned back to his drink and waved the bartender over for a second round. By the time his glass was half-empty, Lucius heard the door to the pub swing open. He drew his eyes to it, immediately spotting the tall, lean blonde man he had been waiting for. The corners of his mouth perked up slightly as Draco noticed where he was sitting and paced over. Seeing his son-his only son, it made him want to react. He wanted to call out to him and embrace him in his arms, like a father should. But they had agreed not to use names, nor titles. The muggles around them surely wouldn't recognize the name Malfoy but there was no telling just how many open ears were in the pub tonight. As Draco approached, Lucius settled for a handshake and draped his free hand over it firmly. It was the most affection he could show and though he couldn't tell if Draco noticed or appreciated the gesture, it was important to Lucius. "How have you been?" He asked as the younger Malfoy male sat down beside him.

Draco nodded and answered shortly. "Busy."

Lucius smiled. "I've heard. You look well." He examined Draco's face. It was still the smooth, baby face that he had remembered. His youth still glowed through his eyes, but the short little prickles of stubble tracing his jaw line and chin had aged him by a few years. Though he was not yet 20, the past two years had obviously hardened him. Lucius began to wonder how different Draco's life would have been had he not followed in his footsteps and joined Voldemort, and now the VRS. Would he have held on to his innocence for just a little longer? The elder blonde wizard's smile weakened.

Acknowledging his father's words only briefly with simple eye contact, Draco reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin sealed envelope with Lucius's name written neatly on the front. He placed it on the counter and slid it between them. "That's for you."

As he looked down at it, Lucius realized it was neither Draco's handwriting, nor Narcissa's, and curiously lifted it off the counter. "What's this?" He questioned and slipped his finger under the seal until it popped open. His eyes scanned over the paper once, twice, and finally three times before he folded it back up and shook his head. The smile had left him. "Is this why you wanted to see me?" He abandoned the envelope and went for his drink instead, ignoring the paper entirely. The look in his eyes darkened from disbelief, to disappointment, and then nothing was left except his wounded expectations.

Draco stiffened in his seat. "Work has to come first. You've always believed that."

"_**Family**_ comes first." Lucius corrected him without hesitation.

Draco's jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed as he snapped back. "The family hasn't been your concern since you left. I've been taking care of things."

"Taking care of things?" Lucius questioned before thrusting the envelope on the counter back towards Draco. "You mean like this? You're an errand boy. Delivering damned owls and whatever else they'll have you transport next." Lucius shook his head in disgust. _'My son…no better than Wormtail was to us, and yet he walks in here with his head held just as high as ever.'_ The thought left an even bitter taste in his mouth than he cared to admit. _'__**My**__ son,'_ Lucius repeated in his head.

A dark shade waved over Draco's face as he grimaced in disgust right back at his father. He shoved the envelope back at him. "I volunteered for this tonight. I wanted to see you." His eyes went cold and he slid off his stool to stand, straightening his clothes as his father had taught him to do all those years ago. Distant memories of his upbringing. "I've seen enough," Draco spat back, eyeing his father briefly before looking away. "You're just as pathetic as I thought you'd be." He turned and begin walking away, tossing over his shoulder, "I've got work to do. So do you."

Lucius was furious. He grabbed the envelope from the counter and tore it to bits. The last time Draco had spoken to him in such a tone was during their last confrontation, before Lucius decided to turn himself in to the Ministry. Narcissa had pleaded with him not to go, that it would be the end of him. She said her fill while Draco sat quietly, watching. Lucius refused and refused, trying to convince her that the Ministry's program was their only chance at a normal life. Finally, she knew she couldn't get him to stay and as he was just about ready to leave, Draco finally spoke. _"You're a fool._" He called out to his father. Narcissa had tried to calm the boy down, tried to shush him, but she couldn't control a young man like she once could when he was only a small child. "_You'll risk bringing them to us. You'll risk our lives as well as your own, and for what? So they'll make you feel like less of an idiot for joining him in the first place? You're a bloody fool, but you won't be bringing us down with you."_

They had both said a lot of hateful things that night-many uncalled for and even downright out of bounds, but Draco had inherited his father's ruthless temper as well as his knack for a sharp tongue. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had all experienced it during their years at Hogwarts with Malfoy. It had just taken all those years and just as much built up emotions for him to finally unleash it all on his father instead of his classmates.

Lucius watched as Draco strode out of the muggle pub. _'__**My**__ son.'_ He took in a deep breath and flagged down the bartender for another drink. It would take a lot more than the two glasses he had already drank to get him through the night.

* * *

><p><em><strong>ANs: <em><strong>So many questions about this chapter. The envelope. What'll happen with Lucius! What about Hermione! <strong>_Cliffhangers! I know! Sorry D: But it had to be done. Chapter 27 will hold all the answers! :) Let's see where it goes! Thank you for reading and reviewing. Let me know what you think!**_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	27. Chapter 27

_**Author's Notes: I really appreciate and love you all for the amazingly kind reviews and the sweet messages both on here and on tumblr. It really is extremely motivating to know that there are actually people not only reading my fanfic, but waiting for chapter updates! So thank you for keeping me motivated through this chapter. It was a little tricky to write, but definitely loads of fun! I hope you all like it. Enjoy!**_

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><p>Chapter 27<p>

Lucius groaned against the fabric of his pillow. His body ached and although he had absolutely no desire to move, he knew that he had to get up at some point. He pressed his face down further into the pillow, driving his forehead into it as he stretched stiffly and forced out a yawn. As his blurred eyes slowly began to focus, he pinched them closed again. "Fuck…" He swore, catching sight of the room around him from the level of the floor. He was on a rug at least, with a thin blanket draped over the majority of his body and a soft pillow under his head. He groaned again and pushed himself up with his arms, pulling his legs underneath him lazily. His eyes scanned over the room. It was one of the many sitting rooms that the Manor held, this one in particular was the closest to the manor's front entrance.

Dragging himself up off the floor, the blanket fell down to his feet and twisted around his legs loosely. He swore again and kicked it off angrily. Lucius only managed to take a few staggering steps towards the closest armchair before collapsing in a heap down on it. He pulled a hand up to his face and tried to rub the grogginess from his eyes and the throbbing from his head. A small flash of movement caught his sight as Mimbi quietly entered the room. He groaned again and went back to massaging the temples of his head with little relief. Mimbi stopped beside the pillow and blanket and bent down to gather them in her short, scrawny arms. Lucius had no doubts that it was her who had brought them to him last night. He most likely came back to the manor, stumbling and cursing, slurring his words and spitting them out with as much emphasis as an angry politician. It was obvious that he didn't manage to get very far, having quite possibly tripped on his own feet and landed right where he woke up this morning. Some time in the night, Mimbi had brought the blanket and pillow from his very own bed chambers and tried to make her Master as comfortable as she could. She had tried to move him in the past but that only resulted in a strong backhanded strike and another spew of cruel curses.

"Get my sobriety potion." Lucius mumbled over to Mimbi just as she was heading back out of the room with the bundle of basic beddings in her hands. The frail house elf nodded and tried to present her most friendly smile in return. Malfoy groaned again and began to feel the sickness in his stomach threaten to reach up through his throat. "Go!" He shouted, doubling over in the chair with his elbows on the tops of his thighs. He pulled his wand from his breast pocket and summoned the waste bin from across the room, letting it drop back down to the floor between his feet. If he was going to be sick, the least he could do was not ruin the expensive upholstery in the process.

* * *

><p>Hermione's second day at the library was spent just as productively as the first. Before long, she found herself sitting at a table of her very own with all of her text books spread out across the table. She had a piece of parchment and was jotting down note after note from the different books. Anything she thought could be helpful during her exams, she wrote down to go over again later. When she ran out of parchment to write on, she abandoned it and instead just read through the old school books, trying to retain as much information as she could. Although it had been years since she sat in a library and studied for exams, she soon realized it was much like riding a bicycle and it came back just as naturally as breathing.<p>

Time pasted quicker than she had expected. Yesterday, she had returned to the Weasley home not long after eight o'clock at night, and if she wanted this library cover story to continue to work, she would need to return home no later than eight or eight thirty tonight as well. She packed up her books and study guides shortly before four thirty and left for Malfoy Manor.

As she arrived, Mimbi escorted her inside and brought her up to the library. Lucius was no where to be found. Mimbi smiled at her happily and offered her tea. When Hermione declined, Mimbi tried again with some small sweet pastries. The smell of them wafted under her nose and although she hadn't eaten since breakfast, she refused again, thanking the kind house elf for her offers. "Thank you, Mimbi, but I won't be here long." Mimbi finally accepted her answer as final only when Lucius marched into the room. He shot the small house elf a glare and she scurried out of the library quickly, nearly dropping one of the pastries off its tray on her way out.

Just as Mimbi darted through the library's doorway, Lucius pulled out his wand and flicked it roughly towards the door. It slammed shut directly behind the flustered elf. Hermione straighten up on the sofa, her pulse suddenly rapid and her nerves fully awake. With the door taken care of, Malfoy tucked his wand away and instead withdrew what looked to be a fairly destroyed bit of parchment. It had been fused back together by magic but it had obviously been torn and crumbled at some point before then. He continued his march over to the sofa and pressed the parchment into her hands forcibly. "I believe this is what you came for." He spat out coldly, refusing to look at neither Hermione or the letter he had handed her.

Hermione eyed him cautiously, ignoring the parchment at first to watch him stomp behind the couch and stand beside his oversized desk. Although he wasn't speaking, she could see he was still clearly fuming and her curiosity forced her eyes away from him and back down at the letter in her hands. She skimmed it over. The witch frowned, creasing her brows tighter together as she read it over for a second time. She would need to keep it if her plan with the Order was to go through successfully. Folding the letter in half and then in half again, Hermione vocalized her concerned. "May I keep this?"

Lucius had begun pacing, not very fast, but it was most certainly in a traditional pacing pattern. He paused shortly as she spoke and then continued in his frustrated movements. "Keep it, burn it, chew it up and swallow it for all I care." His tone was harsh and overall unkind.

That was not the attitude Hermione was expecting when she left the library this afternoon. He had always at least pretended to be a proper and refined gentleman, as much as he could in most circumstances. Something was clearly off. "A simple 'yes' would have sufficed." Hermione advised, folding the parchment once more before tucking it safely into her beaded handbag. "I'm assuming things didn't go so well with your meeting then." She tried to slide into the conversation as smoothly as possible but with Lucius still moving behind the couch and Hermione trying to sit on it without cranking her neck around, any start of the conversation was bound to end disastrously.

"No," Malfoy grumbled loudly. "Things didn't _go so well._" He repeated her phrasing, mocking her.

He was obviously upset and with her previous knowledge of Draco Malfoy, there was no doubt as to why. Had he said something to disappoint Lucius? Perhaps Draco had somehow irritated or even offended his father during their recent meeting. Hermione looked down at her beaded bag. _'You've got what you came for. His troubles are exactly that…HIS. Just get up, leave, and forget this little tantrum of his ever happened.'_ Hermione pressed herself to leave, but she found that she couldn't. She shifted on the sofa so as to face him more easily and shook her head. "Will you just come sit already? If you keep pacing like that, you're going to wear down the flooring."

She was joking of course, but Lucius didn't find it at all funny. He shot her a glance, pressing his lips tightly in a disgruntled scowl. Nevertheless, the ex-death eater made his way over to the sofa. "Part of me wishes I hadn't left them, hadn't returned here at all. We could have all been hundreds, thousands of miles away from here by now. Safe."

Hermione was following him up until the last part. Given his current situation, it could be taken one of two ways. She questioned it further. "Safe from who exactly?"

Lucius shrugged, shaking his head as if her question were somehow ridiculous. "The Ministry, The VRS, everything."

"And they're not safe now? As far as the Order knows, Draco is long gone. They probably don't even suspect he has any ties to the VRS. Do you mean he's not safe with them?"

He motioned uncertainly with his head again, not completely confident in a solid answer. "He seems to believe he's moved up in ranks, though how far up, I don't know. But if this is anything like how the Dark Lord was, then it doesn't matter what rank he is. Everyone is expendable."

Hermione's mind was quick at work. "But you've said that this isn't anything like when the Dark Lord had risen. There are similarities of course, but I'm sure there are also plenty of differences, aren't there?" Lucius nodded but the scowl wouldn't leave his face. Something was still bothering him, something more than just his family's safety. Hermione hesitated, double thinking her approach, before trying a different question. "How is Draco?"

Lucius visibly grimaced slightly, his scowl turning colder as he recalled how the reunion with his son had turned so sour the night before. Hermione regretted the question almost immediately, but even more so when Lucius finally answered. "Somehow I doubt the Order really cares how my son is doing."

He was coarse again, verging on outright rude, and Hermione couldn't help but snap back at him. "Keep it to yourself then. Or don't. It doesn't matter to me. I was just asking for your benefit anyway."

"**My** benefit?" Malfoy asked. "How is talking about my son going to benefit me? I thought this was all about you and your precious Order? All about collecting the information so you can go running back to them with it, like a dog whose finally found a bone, am I right?" His foul mood must have finally taken over completely. His words grew rougher until she could stand it no longer and she struck him.

As she pulled her fist back towards her body and let it hang tightly down by her side, an eerie feeling trickled over her as the confrontation immediately reminded her of when she punched the younger Malfoy male years ago at Hogwarts. Her knuckles were beginning to ache just as badly as they did then, but this time seemed entirely different. Draco and his goons had gone off running and crying, threatening her even as they fled. Now, as she found herself standing in Malfoy's library with her fist still balled up and throbbing, no one was fleeing or crying. His head had been jerked violently to the side by the blow and his cheek was beginning to redden and swell, but he remained seated. His calm demeanor was beyond unsettling. Malfoy slowly turned his face back towards her, bringing his eyes up to hers. He rose from the sofa slowly and when he finally straightened up to his full height beside her, Hermione felt a sudden wave of relief wash over her that she had remembered to bring her wand. She loosened her fist and felt her wand through her pocket, reassured that it was still safely in place should she need it now. Lucius spoke stiffly, his voice having dropped down to a deeper level than she had believed possible from him. "If there's nothing else, I think it'd be best if you leave."

Hermione watched him cautiously for a second longer before snatching her beaded handbag off the sofa. "I can see myself out."

* * *

><p>She could only vaguely remember her trip out of the manor, she was so upset with a mixture of frustration and anger. Hermione knew that he wasn't exactly happy with their arrangement, but what did he expect? She was on the side of the Order and he was most certainly not. At least she showed some kind of concern for him by asking about Draco, but did he see it as concern? Of course not. Hermione stopped before she approached the Burrow. She couldn't go inside while she was still fuming over her confrontation with Malfoy. She drew in a few deep breaths, wiped a hand over her face to try to relax her tightened muscles, and entered.<p>

The Weasleys were as lively as ever. With the wedding so close, the house seemed to constantly be filled with various odds and ends, decorations that had arrived early, packages, and even an oversized table centerpiece that Mrs. Weasley refused to keep outside. So instead, it cluttered up the kitchen table with its enormous size. "Hey 'Mione." Ron greeted her first. "How was the library?"

Hermione forced her lips into a smile and nodded happily. "Great, Ron. I got a lot of studying done."

"Mum's made a pie for dessert. She said dinner will be ready in about half an hour. I'll save you a seat next to me if you want."

Hermione's smile softened. _'He's trying…at least give him that much.'_ Despite her recent irregularities, and the return of her night terrors, Ron was still holding hope that she would decide to come back to him. And given their close living situation, Hermione couldn't exactly blame him for not giving up. She nodded and her smile became a bit more natural. "Thanks, Ron. That'd be perfect. I'll just go put my books away and wash up before we eat."

She hurried upstairs and went to the bathroom, taking her beaded handbag in with her. Locking the door, Hermione began digging through the bag until she felt the letter she had gotten from Lucius. She unfolded it and laid it down on the countertop next to the sink. Her hand plunged back down into the bag until she pulled out a spare bit of parchment and a writing quill. She lowered the seat of the toilet, sat down, and began to write out a letter of her own. The penmanship was sloppy with a few deliberate misspellings and lacking in proper punctuation, but it was exactly how it needed to be. Inconspicuous. She continued to scrawl it all out as quickly as she could before it was time for dinner.

* * *

><p>"Mr. Weasley, could I speak with you for a moment?" Hermione's nerves were rattling her but she tried to keep her composure as best as she could. She had never been a very good liar, especially not to the Weasleys, but if she were to ever need a shining moment, now would have to be that time.<p>

Arthur Weasley had finished his breakfast and was just getting ready to leave for work when Hermione approached him. "Sure, Hermione. Of course. I hope it's nothing to worry about." He opened the front door and motioned for her to exit first. "Leaving now, Molly." He called back into the house, to which they both heard Mrs. Weasley wish him her goodbyes and her hopes for him to have a good day. She appeared by the door and they embraced briefly before she let him go off to work. As they stepped outside, Mr. Weasley brought his attention back to Hermione.

"I was wondering if I could come to the Ministry offices with you today." Hermione shrugged it off with confidence and added, "I thought I might consider taking you up on that job you mentioned. If I could just poke around a bit for the day and see if anything stands out to me, maybe that could help me decide."

"That's a wonderful idea! I'm afraid I'll be busy with meetings and reports for most of the day, but I can at least show you around a bit before I get started." He was beaming with excitement. No doubt he was at least slightly disappointed that neither Ron nor Ginny had chosen a career with the Ministry. In fact out of all his children, Percy was the only one to even vaguely follow in their father's footsteps and take on an official job with the ministry. He did have Harry of course, and Hermione was as close as family, so now that she was showing an interest in a potential ministry job, he was thrilled.

"Great!" Hermione smiled back. "Thanks, Mr. Weasley."

* * *

><p>As they arrived, Mr. Weasley gave commentary on the various departments that they passed. Each door they walked by, he made note of and gave a little bit of insight into that particular part of the Ministry. A few witches and wizards passed by and Arthur took the opportunity to introduce them to Hermione. She smiled sweetly and nodded graciously when they welcomed her to the Ministry or wished her good luck in her future endeavors. They moved on with Arthur still proudly showing off everything he could think of. "Well, I believe that brings us to the end of the tour." Mr. Weasley pointed towards a door a few paces ahead of them and explained, "This is where my office is. You're free to explore a bit if you'd like. Just follow the guide signs that are posted and you shouldn't get into too much trouble." He joked before clarifying a bit more seriously. "If somewhere is off limits to the public, you'll either be told so by a sign, a locked door, or someone working nearby. Beyond that, feel free to poke around and see if anything stands out. I'm sure between Harry and I, at least one of us will have enough influence to help get you into whichever department you'd like to work in."<p>

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Weasley. This has been really great. I'll just wander around for a little while before I head out to the library to get some more studying done. I'll meet you back at the Burrow tonight." Hermione thanked him again and Mr. Weasley left to start his day at work. With her escort gone, the young witch strolled back to the main lobby. When they had passed it together, she noticed an enormous directory board listing where each and every department was located, as well as who were the most prominent members of those departments. With her beaded handbag held tightly down by her side, Hermione walked back to the lobby.

The letter that she had scribbled out quickly in the bathroom the night before was tucked safely in her handbag. Hermione ran her index finger down the long list of departments and department heads, searching for the one she was looking for. She wasn't even entirely sure what she was looking for. _'Do they have a department strictly devoted to the Order? Would that be too public, making them too easy of a target in the case of an attack?'_ She wondered the very same things last night, which was why she left the letter's envelope blank. Once she learned the name of the specific department she was looking for, she could fill it out and drop it off just like any other ordinary letter. The ministry had done away with owls years ago. The mess had been far too much to handle and half the time, meetings couldn't even go uninterrupted before a hooting, shrieking owl came flying into the room through an open window. It was a disaster and so the ministry had switched to a more traditional postal system, and it was working fairly well.

That's when it hit her. She stepped away from the directory and spun around, trying to spot a mail trolley. It was still morning and the mail was delivered all day. Surely there was bound to be one rolling around here somewhere. Her eyes darted up and down the hallways until she found one. A tall, lanky man was walking beside it, pulling out letters and handing them off to the various workers as he passed each department. Hermione trailed behind, keeping a good distance between her and the cart. He was standing close to it nearly everywhere he went. She pulled out the letter and wrote out the only name she could think to write. _**Harry Potter. Open Immediately.**_

She caught up to the mail cart and waited until the delivery man slipped into a room with a handful of letters. Hermione hurried over to the cart and dropped the letter inside without stopping, trying to make it look as natural as possible. She continued walking down the hall, turned the corner, returning back to the lobby, and didn't stop until she had pushed her way out of the public doors. It wasn't until she was completely out of the Ministry building that she realized she had been holding her breath nearly the entire time. She swung around to the side of another building and leaned her back against the old bricks. Her eyes closed as she took in a deep breath, followed by another. It was done. The letter would be delivered and just so long as Harry read it, the Order would be notified of the plan Lucius had slipped to her the previous night. Hermione tried to relax but with how nerve-wrecking that all was, a nagging thought came to her mind. _'I really need to think of another way to get Malfoy's information to the Order…I can't keep sneaking it into the Ministry every time. Someone's bound to see me.'_ She took in another deep breath, relieved that no one had seen her this time, and made her way to the library for another day of studying.

* * *

><p>Lucius woke up with a raging headache. His throat felt hoarse and his eyes were no doubt as bloodshot as he imaged they would be. After Hermione left the Manor, he had spent the night trying to numb himself with every ounce of liquor he could find. By midnight, he ended up back in the library, throwing the empty glass bottles against the nearest wall, shattering them into sharp little pieces that now littered the floor underneath. By half past one o'clock, he was passed out behind his desk, originally on the chair, but he had somehow managed to tumble down onto the floor by morning.<p>

When he woke, he wasn't much better. But he had a job to do, whether he wanted to or not. He was absolutely shattered, but he forced himself up into a seated position and called for his house elf to assist him. If everything went according to plan, the ministry would be raiding his home very shortly and the last thing he needed was to be utterly hung over while they tore the manor to pieces.

* * *

><p>Hermione arrived back at the Burrow early. It was only four o'clock in the afternoon but when she stepped through the front door, the house was alive with voices and movement. Surprisingly, Harry was there. He had been spending nearly all of his time at work lately, so Hermione rarely had a chance to see him, especially at this time of day. George, Mr. Weasley, and even Ron were rushing around in what looked like a frenzy. Mrs. Weasley spotted Hermione standing in the doorway and greeted her. "Sorry about the mess, dear. Just step over that bunch there and you should be fine." Hermione looked down at the floor in front of her and realized Mrs. Weasley was talking about a pile of papers that had toppled over off the end table next to the couch. Everyone had been so busy that they didn't seem to have time to clean it up. Hermione waved her wand towards the papers and they neatly rearranged themselves back up on the small side table.<p>

"Mrs. Weasley, what's going on? What's happening?" Hermione asked, though she had a very strong idea.

"The Order's been called to assist. It was a bit last minute, but I suppose that's to be expected with this sort of thing." She was heading back to the stairs when she spotted Ginny coming down. "I've already told you, Ginny. You need to stay here and watch the house."

Ginny stepped down the stairs with her wand in hand and motioned around the room with a general wave of her arm. "Watch the house? What good is that going to do? No one's coming for the house, mum. Besides, Harry's already agreed that I'm to come with everyone."

Just then, Harry came trailing in from the kitchen behind Ron. He caught wind of the conversation and shrugged apologetically at Molly. "Sorry, Mrs. Weasley, but it looks like we'll need as many wands as we can get. I'll keep her out of the front lines if it comes to that, I promise."

"You will not." Ginny corrected him. "You'll put me where I'm needed, just like everyone else. I'm not a little girl anymore. I can take care of myself."

Harry smiled and grabbed her hand gently in his. "I know you can." He pulled her closer towards him and they shared a brief kiss before Mr. Weasley came back into the room.

Hermione tried again, asking no one in particular. "I'm sorry, but what's happening exactly?" She tried to sound as surprised as she could, but after overhearing all of their conversations, it was obvious that the letter she had delivered that morning had reached Harry perfectly. Harry reached into his pocket and handed Hermione that very same letter.

"This was sent to me this morning. It wasn't signed and the letter's untraceable, but for everyone's sake, the Ministry has to take every threat or tip-off seriously." Harry explained as Hermione skimmed over the letter that she had written the night before in the bathroom.

_**To Whom It May Concern:**_

_**This is not a threat. It is a warning. There will be an attack on Azkaban's cells tonight at 7pm.**_

_**Levels 13 through 17 will be targeted in an attempt to free the prisoners in those specific cells.**_

_**If a confrontation occurs, the Ministry and its Order will lose numerous members as a result.**_

_**Your best option for a safe strategy is to instead clear out those specific floors and all cells on them.**_

_**Empty the cells and transfer the prisoners.**_

_**This is your only hope.**_

_**Sincerely,**_

_**Your eyes and ears on the inside**_

Hermione handed the letter back to Harry who put it back in his pocket. "How many people do we have? Are there going to be enough of us to transfer all the prisoners to other cells?" Hermione asked curiously.

Harry shook his head. "We're not transferring anyone."

"What?" Hermione replied immediately. "But the letter just said…"

"I know what the letter said. But that's exactly what they want us to do." Harry began to explain. "For all we know, this could be a trap. It might not be someone who wants to help us at all. If we try to move everyone, we'll be more vulnerable. We'll be off our guard and the usual securities that Azkaban has in place will most likely be lacking. It's too risky, so we're leaving them where they are."

Just when she thought she had everything planned out to work perfectly, Hermione's hopes came crashing down. "But you read what it said. If we try to hold off the attack, we'll be slaughtered."

"Come on, 'Mione. Have some faith in us." Ron urged her. "We may be a couple years out of practice, but we'll be ready for them."

Ginny shifted in her stance and added, "Besides, we'll have the numbers on our side."

Hermione shook her head, frustrated. _'Where were they getting this information from? It's false!'_ She had to correct them. "But we don't **know** that, Ginny." She turned to Harry and asked, "Do we even know how many of them we're expecting?"

He hesitated. "We'll outnumber them. We've got most of the Order behind us, plus the Azkaban guards, and as many folks from the Ministry that we could round up in such short notice."

Hermione tried again. "We know how many we've got, but we don't have a clue how many _they_ have. Harry, you're not thinking clearly. Who are they even targeting? Who are they trying to set free?"

"You read the letter. Everyone on levels 13 through 17." Harry replied. He was beginning to sound a little annoyed by what seemed to be her scolding him.

"Exactly. And how many cells are there in each level?" Hermione asked and Harry hesitated again. "We don't even know. Let's say there's only twenty. And they want to hit five levels? That's one hundred people, Harry! How many people do you think they'll send to collect these one hundred people? Another hundred of their own? Seventy-five? Fifty? Either way, we'll still be outnumbered."

Harry was getting frustrated. "You're exaggerating, Hermione."

"But we don't _know_ that, Harry!" Hermione protested. Mrs. Weasley was exchanging a worrisome glance with her husband and Hermione could tell that she was at least getting through to them. "We need to play it safe with this one. This isn't like it was with Voldemort. We don't know what to expect and if it turns into an all-out battle when we get there…" Hermione trailed off. She didn't want to finish the thought, but everyone knew where it was heading. If things were to get ugly and a fight was to break out, they didn't want to be outnumbered and cornered. No one wanted that.

"We're going to be late. We'll see how things are when we get there and then we'll decide, agreed?" Harry glanced around the room and everyone nodded, last of all, Hermione. The trek to Azkaban would be a long one and although the dementors had been removed years ago, the physical landscape would still pose to be a hazard all by itself.

* * *

><p>Malfoy groaned loudly as Mimbi walked into the main sitting room of the manor's first floor. Streaming in behind her, were at least fifty witches and wizards, wands drawn. "What is it this time?" He asked, the annoyance oozing through his words. The armed ministry workers began fanning out into each room. They had even brought enough people to start searching the second floor as well and when Lucius noticed them spreading out upstairs, his groaning turned quickly into an irritated shout. "Who's in charge this time? I'd like to speak to whoever's in charge here!"<p>

A short round man walked up coolly and handed Lucius the official paperwork that he had been provided. "We've received an anonymous tip that a missing person has been seen here in your home, Malfoy." The man held up a photograph of a young bright-eyed, fair haired girl. She couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old. "Seen her?" The man asked.

Lucius looked shocked. "You've been given false information. I've never seen this girl before in my life."

The man put away the photograph and shrugged. "Well, we've been told otherwise, and given the bounds of your probation, we'll have to make sure there's no truth to it."

"So you've brought the whole bloody ministry with you?" Lucius motioned around to the numerous workers going in and out of every door surrounding them. There were so many of them, he was beginning to think there was more than fifty.

"Got something you don't want us to find, Malfoy?" The man with the photograph asked as he watched the workers tear through the manor as carelessly as a wrecking ball.

Lucius groaned again, running a hand through his hair and smoothing it down the back. "How long is this going to take?"

"As long as it needs to take." The man answered quickly. "Could take all night."

Malfoy shook his head angrily and walked out of the corridor into another hallway nearby. _'Perfect.'_ He thought silently. Now that the V.R.S. had sent this boatload of armed, trained workers to his home on an anonymous, false tip, there would be even fewer wizards at Azkaban when it's attacked, weakening the Ministry's defenses. _'Maybe the V.R.S. know what they're doing after all.'_

* * *

><p>Once the Order arrived at Azkaban, as horrible of a trip as that way, it was easier to get inside than they had expected. With the dementors gone, the overpowering, looming feelings of depression and sadness weren't a burden on them. The atmosphere however, wasn't quite as much of a relief. It still had the same graveyard-like grey walls and the cold, damp feel that could only come from a prison. A pair of guards escorted them up to the thirteenth floor, where they met up with the rest of the guards and ministry workers who were there to assist them. One of the guards stepped forward and asked, "So how exactly are we going to be doing this?"<p>

Hermione eyed Harry, who was staring back at her. Though he didn't want to waver from his own plan of digging in and trying to fight off any attacks, he knew he had to at least entertain Hermione's opinion. "How many cells do you have on this floor?"

"Twenty-five." The guard answered and Harry's confidence dropped. Hermione had been right, and not only that, but there were more cells than she had guessed. Which could possibly mean more people would be involved in the attack. If their numbers were on the higher end of the scale, they could be looking at facing over a hundred dark witches and wizards during the attack.

Harry glanced around the room. Including the Weasleys, the rest of the Order members, the guards, and the handful of ministry workers who had volunteered, they only had roughly fifty able-bodied witches and wizards on their side. It didn't look good. He had to do what was right. He tried to push the defeat out of his voice and instead rang through with only the confidence that he had always been known for. "We've got two hours to move as many prisoners as we can to the lower levels. We'll take each one, cell by cell, and adhere to all security standards and procedures when moving them. We can't have any mistakes, alright?" The guards, Order members, and ministry workers understood. "Good." Harry continued. "We'll split up and have each one of us take a prisoner. Petrify them, and then and _only_ then can you begin moving them out of their cells and down to the lower levels. No stuns, no transfiguring charms. Just stick with the basics and try to get this done as quickly and as carefully as we can."

Everyone nodded in agreement and they began the slow, exhausting task of moving the prisoners.

* * *

><p>The tall grandfather clock in the main foyer of Malfoy Manor's second floor struck for seven o'clock and Lucius smirked inwardly as he stood, leaning against the wall, and watched the workers still searching through every nook and cranny of his home for a girl whom he knew was not there. He called Mimbi over when he spotted her passing by. She was having a fit at how horribly destroyed the manor was becoming, again. "At the rate they're going, they won't be through until after midnight. Bring me some tea. It's going to be a very long night."<p>

* * *

><p>Seven o'clock came quicker than they had hoped and although they had transported most of the prisoners to the lower levels of the wizard prison, they had not move them all. There was still a quarter of the prisoners left on the seventeenth floor and everyone knew that no matter how quickly they continued, they wouldn't be able to move them all. "Harry, it's seven." Ron warned as they met each other in the hallway. They each had their own petrified prisoner floating smoothly in front of them as they made their way down to the tenth and eleventh floors. The rest of the floors had been filled quickly and even if they did somehow manage to get the rest of the prisoners out of their cells, they would have no where to put them except the upper levels. It would be much harder to defend the upper levels and everyone knew it.<p>

Harry frowned. "I know, Ron. Let's just get these two put away and_—_" Before he could finish his thought, they heard a loud blast coming from above them. The floors and walls shook from the impact and as their concentration lapsed, the prisoners they had been transporting came crashing down the floor. The immobilizing charms broke as they collided with the ground. "Stupefy!" Harry shouted as his prisoner was just barely bringing himself up onto his feet.

Ron did the same with his, nearly missing when the wizard convict lunged at his wand. "Bloody hell, Harry. What was that?"

They stuffed the stunned men in Azkaban clothes into the closest cells and sprinted back up to the floors above them. "They're here, Ron! We need to get back up there with the others!" Another powerful blast struck the building again, shaking a heavy stone loose from the ceiling. It came crashing down right beside Ron, just barely missing him. Shaken, Ron got back on his feet with Harry's help and they rushed to go aid the others.

As they reached the thirteenth floor, the dust that had appeared from the blasted stone walls clouded their vision and at first, they couldn't see their own hand in front of their face. With their wands at the ready, they tried to maneuver themselves down the long corridor of empty cells. Someone was crying nearby, wailing as they clutched their injured, bloodied thigh. When the thick stone wall had been blown to pieces, they had been caught by a piece of flying debris. Though Harry and Ron couldn't clearly make out the injured person, they knew it had been someone from their side. "Harry!" Ron shouted. "Where is everyone? I can't see a thing!"

Harry coughed beside him and he knew that they were both most likely covered in a gray gritty powder, making it even harder for anyone to spot them moving throughout the dust. It was beginning to settle though and as they continued to move further down the corridor, the noises gradually became louder until it was all they could hear. Spells and curses were being shouted as various bodies flew across the small area from the force. As the clouds of thick dust began to clear, Harry could make out the faces around them. Mr. Weasley had a tall man in a set of dark robes pinned against the bars of one of the cells, but the man was putting up a fight. Just as he was about to struggle free from Arthur's constrictive charm, Harry shot off a spell, hitting the man square in the chest and knocking him out cold. Mr. Weasley turned, shocked, to see where the spell had come from and when he spotted his son and Harry, he came running over. "It all happened so quickly!" He explained, out of breath already from the sudden thickness lingering in the air and the attack in general. "Before we could even see it coming, the wall was blasted in and we were being attacked."

"We heard it from the lower levels." Ron answered quickly before coughing out another lungful of the overpowering dust they had all been inhaling.

"Where's Ginny?" Harry asked. He had trouble controlling the bit of panic as it leaked through in his tone.

Mr. Weasley's face went white_—_ as white as it could be with the layer of grey dust caked over his skin. "The last time I saw her, she was with Molly and Hermione on the seventeenth floor. That seems to be where the attack started." Arthur motioned towards the disarmed dark wizards lying motionlessly on the ground around them. "There weren't many on this floor."

"And George?" Ron asked nervously.

"I'm here!" They heard a voice coming from a cell further down the corridor. As they stepped closer, they spotted him crawling out from underneath an enormous prisoner. He must have been well over six feet tall. George pushed the unconscious convict off of him and scrambled to his feet. "I lost my footing when the first explosion hit and by the time I got back up, he had charged at me."

His father clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it tightly with a relieved smile on his face. He had already lost one of his sons in the battle against Voldemort. The last thing he wanted was to lose another child in such a similarly horrifying way. "Come on. We need to go find the others." Harry started running towards the upper levels. The Weasleys followed closely behind with their wands in hand.

* * *

><p>"Stupefy!" Hermione shouted. "Stupefy! Reducto!" She was surrounded. The wall had blasted in, knocking them all to the ground and when she looked back up, the V.R.S. members had started streaming into the wizard prison from the gaping hole in the wall. She crawled on all fours to the nearest cell where she could safely regain her stance and calm down her nerves. Unfortunately, the cell already had a pair of occupants and they weren't on her side of the fight. One of them was a short stumpy man in a pair of dirty Azkaban prisoner clothes, and the other was dressed in what looked to be very similar to a set of death eater robes. Outnumbered, she ran. She hurried herself out of the small cell and whipped around the wall of thick, magically enforced bars. Hermione grabbed onto the bars and slammed the cell door shut as quickly as she could. She almost didn't make it as the armed V.R.S. member shot at her from inside the cell, but as soon as the door clicked shut, the magical enchantments were set into place and the spell backfired, ricocheting into the cell where it struck both the prisoner and the caster.<p>

Hermione turned around quickly and spotted another armed wizard coming towards her with his wand trained on her head. She ducked quickly but felt the heat of the spell graze past the delicate skin of her cheek as it missed and struck the bars behind her. She could feel the sting on her cheek but didn't have enough time to react. Another spell came flying her way, this one bound straight for her gut, and she knew she had to act fast. "Protego!" The spell hit her shield and fizzled away angrily, but it gave her enough time to shoot back her own spell. Hers hit its target, knocking out her attacker in an instant. Hermione could hear the others fighting off their attackers just as desperately and when the dust began to clear around them, she could see just how badly they were outnumbered. As if falling into a robotic fight-or-flight mode, she began firing off spell after spell, striking each and every dark witch or wizard that tried to approach her. "Reducto!" She shouted. "Stupefy!" She swung around as another wizard dressed in all black and sporting an old death eater mask tried to sneak up behind her. "Stupefy!"

Time began to slow down, threatening to stop entirely until the pounding in her chest and the throbbing in her head began to numb her completely. The sounds of screaming, of spells, and of cries started to fade away into a ear deafening ringing and her throat began to close. Her wand arm was still raised but as she tried to cry out another curse, a pitiful noise came out instead. She had hit her limit, overloaded, and as the room began to quickly spin, her eyes rolled up towards the ceiling and she came crashing down to the dirty, hard ground of the prison's floors.

* * *

><p>"'Mione, wake up! Oh no, please, 'Mione! Wake up!" Someone was shaking her. She could feel herself being throttled around much like a rag doll and it didn't stop until she heard another voice.<p>

"Stop! You'll snap her neck, you idiot!" It was a feminine voice this time and as Hermione's eyes started to flutter open, little bits of dust and crust were blurring her already foggy vision. It started to clear as she blinked until she was able to make out her surroundings and the people kneeling beside her. Ron, Ginny, and further off in the distance, standing with Kingsley_—_the current Minister of Magic, was Harry. "Healer!" Ginny called out loudly. "We need a healer over here!"

Hermione turned her head to the right to look at the rest of the people surrounding them but as she shifted her weight, the throbbing in her head returned and she pinched her eyes closed with the pain. She heard Ginny tell her not to move and felt Ron's hands back on her, this time cupping up one of her hands in his. "My head…it hurts…" Hermione tried to adjust again, more carefully this time, but the pain returned and she winced again.

"Of course it does. You've nearly smashed yourself open on a bloody boulder. Just stop moving. A healer will be here soon." Ginny got up from her knees and shouted again. "Healer! We need a Healer!"

A thin, tired looking woman ran over to them quickly. The bottoms of her robes were covered with dust from kneeling over the injured bodies she had been working on and her dark ebony colored hands had a layer of sticky wet crimson dripping down the palms. "There are so many injured. I've had to treat the most severely wounded first. I'm sorry you've had to wait so long." She began to work as she apologized. Hermione stared up at the witch, the healer as Ginny had called her. Though her words were fading in and out of Hermione's range of hearing, despite being right beside her, Hermione tried to focus on the woman's deep hazel eyes. Her hair framed her face perfectly and because of her deep cinnamon skin tone, her eyes seemed to pop even more, drawing Hermione in. She felt sleepy. "No, no…don't go to sleep, dearie." The healer was warning her. "What's her name?" She asked. Ginny answered and the healer began calling down to her by her name. "Hermione. Hermione, hon. We need you to stay awake, okay? Hermione, can you hear me?" Her eyes began to flutter closed and though she could hear the healer beside her, she couldn't bring her lids to open again.

* * *

><p><em><strong>ANs: Cliffhanger, I know! Not as much Lumione interaction in this chapter, but hopefully it was still exciting enough to peak your interests :) Let me know what you thought in the reviews, as reading them makes me smile, and now let's move on to Chapter 28! <strong>_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	28. Chapter 28

_**Author's Notes:**_Just a little heads up. Starting this Sunday night, I'll be on **vacation** and won't be returning home until **September 5th**. I've already started Chapter 29, but assuming I don't write anything while I'm away from home, it most likely won't be finished and uploaded until some short while after I get back. Sorry for the wait. If I could write while I'm gone, I would, but somehow I don't think writing potential smut on someone else's laptop is the entirely polite thing to do. ;) (Ooooooh, was that a hint dropped for the next chapter?! Shh...you read nothing!) Enjoy!

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><p>Chapter 28<p>

The tall blonde wizard walked hesitantly down the narrow, unpaved muggle road. Spotting an alleyway to his right, Lucius pulled the hood over his head closer around the edges of his face and ducked down the side-street. He heard noise. As he continued walking, it became louder and easier to identify. Laughter, shouting, raised voices, and other lively sounds let him know that the pub he was searching for was not much further. There was a thin wooden door, rotting around the frame and covered at the base with caked on mud and grim. With a disgusted grimace, Lucius covered his palm with a handkerchief taken from his inner breast pocket and turned the door's knob to enter.

The pub was packed with every table occupied. Muggles seemed to pay him no mind as he walked through the door and scanned over the scene momentarily to try to find his group. They weren't hard to locate, what with their loud, overly rowdy nature. Judging by their movements and slightly slurred speech, Lucius expected the good majority of them were already on their way to intoxication. He strode over to the table. "Last night must have been a success." He announce loudly as he noted the familiar faces sitting around or standing nearby. Their group had grown since the last time he was in a pub with his old comrades, which could mean only one thing. Their plan to break into Azkaban must have gone smoothly.

"Malfoy! Fuck, didn't except to see you again!" Someone was calling to him from across the wide, crowded table. The man stood with his drink still in hand and made his way over to Lucius. They shook hands roughly before the man pulled Lucius into a brief embrace. Lucius allowed it, patting the man on the back stiffly before straightening back up.

"Rodolphus," Lucius greeted him during their embrace. "It's good to see you. It's been too long." He paused and recalled that Rodolphus had been carted off to Azkaban immediately after Voldemort's defeat, like so many other death eaters at that time. Surely he must have known of his wife's death, but Lucius didn't have any time to express his condolences since then. He decided now was as good a time as any and added in shortly, "I was sorry to hear about Bella." Rodolphus nodded in agreement and clapped Lucius on the back before returning to his seat.

"Sit down!" Another familiar voice shouted at Lucius from behind. As he spun around, Antonin Dolohov was walking up behind him with his hands full of at least five tall glasses. "Have a drink." He told Lucius as he finally reached the table and set the drinks down roughly, causing them to spill over their rims. He picked one back up and handed it to Malfoy. "No pints in Azkaban. It's enough to drive a man mad." He was grinning as he took a glass and walked back around to the other side of the table to sit.

Lucius could tell the mood was high. No doubt they were celebrating not only the freedom of the Azkaban escapees, but also their triumph during the attack. Lucius took a glass but remained standing. Most of the chairs were already filled anyway. "How many did we get out?" He asked to no one in particular and took a large gulp from his glass only after wiping off the edge with a clean portion of his handkerchief.

Crabbe was sitting down a few chairs to his left and answered proudly, "Twenty-seven."

Malfoy quickly glanced around and loosely counted heads. He only counted twelve recently freed prisoners surrounding them. "They're not all here." He commented flatly.

Crabbe shrugged. "We've had some casualties. Twenty-seven came out but only nineteen made it back with us. There were some injuries, as you can imagine."

Lucius nodded. "And the other seven?" He asked curiously, taking another drink from his glass. The lukewarm auburn liquid tasted like weeks old piss but it would get him through the evening. The last thing he needed was a sober head around this sort of company.

"Recovering, my friend. There were Aurors already there when we arrived. They knew we were coming, otherwise I suspect we could have made away with at least fifty more for our cause." Crabbe still seemed satisfied with the amount of death eaters they were able to free, but of course, more was always better.

"That's unfortunate." Lucius agreed, though he knew full well how the Order had been alerted. He played a key role, with Hermione, in preventing the attack from being as successful as they had planned it to be but he couldn't dare let that slip out of his mouth tonight, no matter how inhibited he aimed to become. "How did the other side fair, if we lost so few?"

His curiosity seemed justified. It had become a custom for old war buddies to swap tales after a fresh battle, and now was no different. Crabbe swallowed down the last of his pint and his eyebrows lifted in amusement at Malfoy's question. "Can't say exactly but I saw an awful lot of bodies before we left." He chuckled and the men around him agreed just as jauntily.

Amycus Carrow stood against the wall by the opposite side of the table with his sister, Alecto sitting in a chair in front of him. The newly freed female dark supporter caught wind of Crabbe and Malfoy's discussion and joined in. "It didn't last long, Malfoy. Not much of a challenge if you ask me. I would have thought they'd put up a better show than they did. There were barely any of them there to begin with." She laughed and clinked glasses with the fellow death eaters around her.

"I believe you played a part in that, Lucius, didn't you?" Crabbe asked. "I was told you were entertaining a few of our dear friends from the ministry last night."

Jeers and outbursts were heard from all around their table. They swore at the mention of the ministry and even made a few foul suggestions of how best to entertain such _'friends'_. Lucius scoffed light-heartedly. "A few? There were so many of them swarming my home, I didn't think there'd be any left for you lot to bother with."

Another round of laughter and rowdy horseplay began as the group broke off into several smaller conversations. Lucius watched as the muggles around them ignored the death eaters entirely. Either they were far too drunk to care, or they were so wrapped up in their own table conversations that they took no notice. The night went on and as midnight came and went, so did the early morning hours. It wasn't until nearly five in the morning that the pub's owner finally announced that it was closing. Most of the muggles had left, or passed out by then, but there were still shouts of protest and boos heard all around, mainly from Malfoy's tablemates. As they began to find their footing after sitting for so long, Lucius wondered where they expected to go. Surely they didn't believe he would allow them to stay in his home. Not with the ministry popping in any time they pleased. But if they had no where to go and decided to raid muggle homes for shelter, wouldn't that draw even more unwanted attention? He caught up with Rodolphus just as their group start filing out through the pub's flimsy old door. "Does everyone have a place to stay? A group this large might attract the wrong kind of attention if left to roam the streets."

The widowed Lestrange nodded his reassurances as he and Malfoy squeezed through the dirty pub's exit. "It's all been arranged, Lucius. We've got a safe house out in the countryside that's proven quite useful these past few nights."

"And Draco…" Lucius began. "Is he there?"

Rodolphus eyed Malfoy with sudden uncertainty. It was obvious that Lucius had said something off, otherwise Rodolphus wouldn't have hesitated as much as he did. "Of course." He finally answered, as if Lucius should have already known it. "He was there before any of the rest of us, with your wife."

* * *

><p>First it was bare, a blank slate, a baron piece of land that time had forgotten, and then it was there. As if someone had placed a giant invisibility cloak over the entire area, Lucius followed Rodolphus and the others to their safe house. It was in the dead of the countryside, so deep in the old abandoned fields that no muggle would accidentally stumble across it. If that unfortunate muggle did happen to come across the safe house, Lucius had no doubts that the muggle wouldn't make it back out alive. With the current inhabitants an entire mix of past Voldemort supporters, current V.R.S. members, and various new comers, a muggle would be nothing more than a plaything in their hands. "How long has this been here?" Malfoy asked, scanning over the tall two story farmhouse in front of them. It was old, most likely an old muggle home, but even with its massive size, to fit so many fugitives inside must leave them with barely any room to breathe.<p>

Lucius and Rodolphus followed the group inside through the front entrance, though a few stragglers decided to sit outside on the wrap-around porch instead. "No idea," Rodolphus replied. "But it's suited us well so far." As they stepped inside, it was much bigger on the inside. An undetectable extension charm must have been set in place.

They continued to walk throughout the first floor. There were people everywhere. Not only dark wizards and a few dark witches, but as Lucius passed a small room off to their right, he spotted a young boy, no more than twelve years old. He was sitting on the floor with a few toys placed between him and an even younger girl. Lucius frowned and stopped, staring into the room. "You never said there were children."

Rodolphus hadn't noticed when Malfoy paused by the doorway. When he heard Lucius speak, he stopped but didn't backtrack to meet with him. Instead, he waited for Lucius to continue walking. "You were lucky, Lucius. When the Dark Lord fell and we were all displaced, your son was already grown. Not as many were so fortunate. I've been told that we've been doing what we can for them but it's not the same as having a real home." It was obvious that Rodolphus and Bellatrix would have never been the type of parents any child deserved, but it still left Lucius concerned that the two youngsters were staying in a safe house with a bunch of lawless death eaters of all places. Malfoy was still hesitant to leave the doorway. "Come, Lucius. You can't help them any more than we can. They'll be fine."

The two men passed a few more doors before Rodolphus stopped beside one and knocked three times, waiting for a response. There was silence and Lucius began to regret coming. '_What will Draco do? What will he say? And Narcissa…' _His thoughts fell to Narcissa and his regret grew with every passing second. At last, a voice called to them through the thick wood just as the door creaked open. Rodolphus glanced at Lucius but when the blonde wizard made no attempt to step inside, he took to the room first. "I've brought someone with me." He announced.

"Who…?" Lucius heard Draco ask inside. His face paled but he forced his legs to shift forward, bringing him through the doorway into the room. His eyes caught Draco first before finding Narcissa sitting beside him on a small, worn in sofa. She was as striking as he remembered, if not more-so, but the expression she wore was nothing close to happiness. The room fell silent and Lucius could swear he was able to hear his own breathing pounding in his ears. "Thank you, Uncle." Draco finally spoke, but his tone was anything but gracious. Rodolphus read it exactly as it was—dismissive. Lucius felt the old death eater pat him roughly on the back before he left the room, closing the door behind him. "Father." Draco greeted him, but something was lacking. _'Respect? Love?_' Lucius wondered silently.

"I see you're well." Malfoy remarked with a somewhat submissive smile. "You weren't at Azkaban?"

Draco corrected him quickly. "I _was_ there. I brought Uncle back." He announced proudly, but his pride was masked by something else. It struck Lucius as cold and he knew that Draco wasn't saying it to impress his father in any way. He was saying it in an effect to say '**I** brought Uncle back…and you left him there to rot.' Lucius nodded silently. He couldn't argue with the truth as much as it shamed him.

"Draco tells me that you've chosen to align with us." Narcissa said and Lucius nodded again, unsure of exactly how much his son had shared with his wife. "And the ministry…" she started, letting her words trail off into a question.

Lucius cleared his throat. "I'll be staying public. I've been told it's the best way for me to assist in…" He paused to search for an appropriate word. What exactly was the V.R.S.? As far as he could tell, their main focus was some sort of revenge for being so put out by the ministry when Voldemort had been defeated. But that couldn't possibly be their only motive. "To assist in the cause." He finished, unhappy with how neutral his words had ended up sounding.

Narcissa turned her head, pulling her face away from him in exchange for Draco instead. Her eyes danced over the young man's narrow features, his pale blonde hair that so resembled his father's, and the high cheekbones and cutting jaw line that had come from her. She stroked the back of his neck gently. "I wasn't aware that your tasks required you to associate with muggle-born witches, Lucius. I must have somehow missed that bit of information."

Obviously Draco had informed his mother of everything the Daily Prophet had been publishing about Lucius and Hermione. Lucius shot a glance at his son and expected Draco to shrink back into his seat, but he didn't. He lifted his chin slightly and stared just as blankly at him as Narcissa had done. They expected some kind of answer, some sort of excuse for why he was spending his free time with a mudblood of all people. "I'm playing my part convincingly. The Ministry seems to have approved and now that I've gained back their trust, my interactions with such people has ceased."

His wife's face seemed to soften if only barely, and Lucius smiled at her acceptance, as silent as it was. Draco was harder to convince. He pushed himself forward on the sofa, pulling himself away from his mother's gentle caresses and leaned the weight of his arms on the tops of his knees. "You have no connection with her then? No lingering sentiments?" He was challenging Lucius, daring him to lie, if only to drag out the sickening truth.

Lucius's face hardened. His patience and understanding was growing thin and he was getting tired of listening to his only son speak to him as if he were scum. "No. I've already told you, Draco. I'm playing a role."

Draco shifted back against the cushions and pressed his point. "So then if I were to tell you that Granger didn't make it out of Azkaban, you would have no resentments?" Narcissa had returned her stare towards Lucius and as he watched them both watching him, examining him every time he shifted or exhaled, he was struck by how similar the two truly were.

It became harder for him to keep his back stiff and his eyes bore into his son's. _'You're lying. You're pinning me here, expecting me to squirm away, but I won't because you're __**lying**__.' _Lucius forced his shoulders back as he took a small step forward away from the door and closer to their sitting area, though he knew he had no interest in sitting down now. He prayed that his voice didn't break as he tried to sound as careless in his answer as possible. "If there were any truth to it, no, I would have no issues. One less mudblood in the world."

A rough, satisfied chuckle rolled up Draco's throat and even Narcissa broke her stare with Lucius to look at her son. He was smirking, his eyes wide with amusement. "But it is true, father. I saw her just before we left." He drew a hand up to his head and pressed his index finger against the side of his head towards the back. "She wasn't moving and her head was split, though it was mostly just a bloody mess by the time I spotted her."

Lucius tried hard to examine Draco's face, to see through the wicked smirking and uncover some other truth, a truth where Hermione was somehow still alive. Their intense stares broke and Lucius's eyes drifted down to the space between them. His voice was cold and controlled as he said what he knew he was required to feel and by extension, what he was expected to say. "As I said…one less mudblood."

* * *

><p>Rodolphus was still linger in the hallway when Lucius stepped out of the room. "That was quick," the dark haired death eater commented.<p>

Lucius wanted to break out his wand and crucio him just for the simple irritation his presence was causing. The conversation with his son and his estranged wife had ended just as awkwardly as it had began but it was still a private moment he didn't wish to share. Before retreating out of the room, Narcissa warned him not to shame the family any further than he had already done and Draco agreed silently, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his chin up at his father. Years ago, things would have been different. Before he was sent to Azkaban, before he was a broken man, he would have never put up with that type of disgrace, especially not from his own family. But now, he felt like the odd man out and knew it would take a lot more than agreeing to help the V.R.S. to drag himself back into their good graces. Lucius walked down the hallway back towards the old farmhouse's exit. "I wasn't anticipating a long-winded conversation." Malfoy replied curtly.

"Well, you're welcome to stay. The Ministry may have taken you back but you're still one of us." Rodolphus offered.

Somehow Malfoy doubted that he was as welcomed as Rodolphus thought. He declined. "I need to take care of a few things at the Manor. The Ministry tore it to pieces last night while you were all at Azkaban. I'll need to check in and make sure it's not still a disaster." Rodolphus shrugged, disinterested. Obviously living in a small, filthy cell for years had left him lacking in the subject of general home cleanliness.

Despite what he had told Rodolphus, Lucius didn't apparate back to the Manor. Instead, he landed just on the outskirts of the Weasley's property. He knew why he had come—to put to rest Draco's lies, but what he actually planned on doing once he got there was a complete guess. He kept his wand out as he carefully approached the small home. There were always people at the Burrow. Whether he was going to attempt to weasel information out of whoever was home, or just peep in through the windows to see if he could spot Hermione, he wasn't certain. But he kept moving, carrying himself heavily closer to the Burrow. _'Something's wrong…'_ He noted, realizing that the windows were dark. The lights weren't on and as he peered up further towards the upper levels, the home seemed vacant. _'She's not here, you idiot, because she's __**dead**__. What did you expect to find?'_

He pushed the disturbing thoughts from his mind and moved closer. Lucius followed the home around to the backside and tried to see inside one of the windows. It was the living room. There was a sofa, a small table stacked high with various papers, and lying on the floor nearby was Hermione's beaded handbag. It had been carelessly left beside the sofa, useless to her now, wherever she was. _'This time of night…early morning…if they had left, fled to a safe house of some kind, she would have taken it with her.'_ Lucius stared through the window at the handbag and cursed under his breath. Draco had been telling him the truth. She didn't make it out of Azkaban alive and in that moment, all he could feel was a crushing wave of anger, guilt, but most of all, sadness.

* * *

><p>Hermione was lying in a crisp white bed at St. Mungo's hospital with a medical wrap drawn tightly around her head. The pain was gone but it still throbbed from time to time. She was told the discomfort would fade and it was proving to be true day by day. As long as the throbbing was gone by tomorrow morning, she would be free to leave by that evening. It had been two days since the attack on Azkaban and according to the healers that took care of her, she had only woken up briefly once in those two days before slipping back into unconsciousness. When she did finally wake up for good, Mrs. Weasley was the first person she saw. She was sitting by her bedside, working on a new cozy homemade sweater with a big bold <strong>H<strong> on the front. Hermione knew it was for her.

She was confused at first, unsure as to where she was and why she was there, but as soon as Mrs. Weasley told her it was the wizard hospital, it all came back to her. Azkaban and the prisoners they had been trying to move, then the initial blast and the thick dust. She remembered trying to find safety in a cell but then the only thing she could remember was seeing how badly they were outnumbered. She had fought as hard as she could, which made it even more confusing when she tried to think of how she got to St. Mungo's. It was only when a familiar dark-skinned witch with brilliant hazel eyes came to check Hermione's bandages that she was told what happened. "I couldn't find any injuries except for your head, dear." The healer's eyes darted between the medical wraps and Hermione's face as she continued to work at unraveling the bandages. "You were a bit scratched up, bruised, which was expected, but there weren't any other serious injuries. It looks like you fainted, dear."

Hermione sat stiffly as the healer switched out the old wraps for fresh ones. "Fainted?" She repeated quietly.

The witch started bandaging up Hermione's head again, this time using less of the wraps to let the wound begin to air out and start to heal quicker. Even with magic, head injuries were tricky and couldn't be completely fixed as quickly as perhaps a sprained wrist or a twisted ankle. "Yes, you hit your head on the way down, most likely on a boulder and that's what kept you knocked out for so long. From what I've been told, you were quite lucky. I imagine the people behind the attack took one look at you lying on the ground like you were and assumed you were already gone, dear."

The healer was trying to make her feel better, lucky even, as she put it, but Hermione couldn't get the thought out of her head. _'Fainted…I fainted…What good am I to the Order if I can't even stay conscious when it counts?'_ It was crude and unfair thinking but Hermione couldn't help it as the guilt began pouring in. Before she could think to straighten back up and stiffen her face, a single heavy tear pressed itself against the bottom lash line of her left eye and trickled down her cheek. "Oh dear," She heard Mrs. Weasley whisper softly before Hermione felt the elder witch's hand touching the back of her own hand. The healer stood from the side of the bed and left with delicate timing while Mrs. Weasley did the exact opposite. She scooted closer to Hermione's side and tried to soothe her with kind words. It had always been Molly's go-to approach with most situations—gentle words and a motherly hug could cure all.

As if a switch had been flicked on, the single tear was quickly followed by another, and then a third, before there were too many to count and Hermione stopped trying to brush them away before they could fall. She sniffled and tried to blink her eyes clear but it was too late and there were too many gathering at the base of her eyes. She could hear Mrs. Weasley speaking but couldn't make out her exact words. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, and as the young witch finally gave in to the tears that had been building up inside her for days, months, years even, she drew her knees up to her chest and buried her now moistened face into her arms. The defeat she had felt, how frightened she had been, but most of all, how useless she felt waking up days too late in a hospital bed, knowing she had done nothing to help the Order. She let it all go, if only in that moment. She was just thankful that Mrs. Weasley was the only one in the room to see her break down.

* * *

><p>While Hermione laid unconscious in her bed at St. Mungo's for the past two days, Lucius spent his days and nights in a similar state. After visiting the Burrow days ago and seeing it uninhabited, with Hermione's handbag left behind, he dragged himself back to the Manor. Ignoring the thought of even trying to sleep, he found himself sitting alone in the library. A bottle of dark liquid was tightly fisted in his hand as he tried to let his mind finally rest. In the past, the alcohol had helped. When Voldemort had become disappointed in him and he felt he could no longer provide as well for his family, the drinking had somehow numbed him to all that, if only temporarily. Perhaps that's why he hadn't noticed Narcissa drifting away even back then. But it helped. And now, as he thought about the attack on Azkaban and Hermione's death, he prayed that this bottle would help numb his mind again.<p>

'_I warned her…I told her about the attack. She knew they would be outnumbered. I warned her.'_ He tried to convince himself. There was no way for him to save her. He did all that he could and it just wasn't enough. But then why did he still feel so guilty and why, when he looked over at the opposite side of the sofa, did his gut twist and pinch beneath his flesh? _'But you __**could**__ have saved her. You could have insisted that she didn't go. If she didn't go with the Order that night, she would still be alive, but you didn't do that. __**You let her go **__**and now she's dead.**__'_ Lucius closed his eyes, shutting out the view of her spot on the sofa entirely from his peripheral vision, and took another swig from his bottle. By the time the sun rose hours later, the bottle had rolled out of his hand, empty, and laid motionlessly next to him on the sofa. When he finally woke in the late afternoon with a pounding headache and a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, he knew that the days to follow would not play out any differently.

* * *

><p>As expected, on her third day at St. Mungo's, Hermione was released from the wizard hospital. The entire Weasley clan, Harry included, arrived around noon to escort her back to the Burrow. The bandage on her head had been removed, leaving a thin scar under her hair, but the wonders of magic had healed her well so far. She was given strict bed-rest instructions, no straining, no over-exertion, and most importantly, she should try not to whack her head on any boulders in the near future! The witch discharging Hermione had laughed at that last one, obviously finding it much funnier than it actually was. Hermione thanked her and left with her red-headed escort group back to the Burrow.<p>

The first hour was spent fussing over Hermione's return. Mrs. Weasley had set up a cozy little spot on the main floor where they brought down a bed from upstairs that she could use. Hermione tried to figure out who's bedroom it had come from and felt badly knowing that by using it, she was leaving someone else without a proper bed. "Really, Mrs. Weasley. I can just stay on the sofa. It's no problem." Hermione tried to say but Mrs. Weasley wouldn't hear any of it.

"You'll be needing bed-rest, dear, not sofa-rest. It's no trouble." She smiled cheerily and began fixing a big pot of her homemade Mama Weasley Stew. It wasn't anything special, just a mixture of whatever vegetables and spices they happened to have in the house at the moment, but it was warm and savory, the best cure for any aliment. To her own surprise, exhaustion took her over and before the stew had even finished simmering to delicious completion, Hermione was fast asleep on the bed.

_They were surrounded. Though the thick gray dust was clouding their vision, Hermione could hear them clearly, shrieking, hollering out obscenities and threats. Even though the Order had been expecting them, it still couldn't slow the pounding in her chest as soon as the first blast hit the building. It was all so __**loud**__, making the attack seem ten times as frightening as it had originally been. But dreams could quickly turn into nightmares, as Hermione had learned throughout the years._

_Not being able to see, Hermione dropped to the ground instinctively. She dragged herself on her belly, using her elbows and knees to shift over the bits of stone and other rumble that was lying in her path. She crawled quickly into the nearest cell and tried to recover from the shock and the thick dust that was choking her already staggered breaths._

_She felt movement to her left and just as she was able to get back on her feet, more movement was heard from the right. The cell wasn't empty. Her pulse quickened again as she held out her wand, trying to cover the noise from both directions. "Get back!" The young witch warned, inching her way back out of the cell. Someone shuffled closer towards her from the left side and she jerked her wand to its source, but the dust was still so thick, must thicker than it had been in reality. Hermione coughed and tried to suck in a breath of clean air, but there was none to have. She coughed again and the movement continued, approaching her now from the right. "Get—," She started to scream again but the dust cluttered up her throat and the rest of her shout came out as another painful, choking cough._

_Her attackers were closing in but as she tried to yell out a curse, a spell, anything to hold them back, it got caught up in the disabling dust again. "Reduct—," She wheezed out sharply. "Reducto…" She tried again, finally pushing out the full incantation, but there wasn't enough power behind the spell and it fizzled out pitifully at the tip of her wand._

_The two figures stepped forward, finally coming close enough to wear Hermione could see them clearer. She saw the masks covering their faces, dark with almost skeletal silver and gold highlights. Their wands were extended and although they wore long hooded cloaks to conceal their identifies even further, she knew that no matter who they were behind the masks, they were there to kill her. Still holding out her wand, as useless as it was if she couldn't say a single incantation without coughing up a fit, she drew her free hand up towards her face as a shield. _

_The killing curses crawled up their throats like verbal bile and as she heard the magic sizzle around them, she pinched her eyes closed tightly. '__**This is the end. I'm going to die**__,' she thought feebly. Hermione pulled her wand hand away from them, pushing it up in front of her face with the other hand and waited for the spells to hit her trembling body._

"_Avada Kedavra!" She heard the full incantation at least, shouted loudly with as much feeling and core that was needed for it to be successful. But it came from behind her, outside of the cell door. She squeezed her eyes closed tighter as she heard the spell hit not once, but twice. The sound of thick weight dropping to the floor rang through her ears and when she finally opened her eyes, the two death eaters in the cell with her were lying on the ground in front of her feet. She swung her head around, afraid that another spell might come rushing towards her just as quickly as it had hit them. Hermione scanned over the corridor of Azkaban for the caster and as her eyes were finally able to focus through the settling dust, Lucius Malfoy stood just outside the cell's opening. He lowered his wand as Hermione turned to face him fully, still in shock. Her hands were trembling and her heart was like that of a hummingbird but as her eyes found his, all she could manage to do was stare in silence. He gave her a short nod, his charming, sweet-lipped smile reaching her with a familiar warmth, and disappeared back into the clouds of dust and the howls of battle._

* * *

><p>With the first day back at the Burrow spent sleeping, Hermione was determined to spend the second day at least some what productively. She pulled Percy's old textbooks out of her small handbag and flipped them open. At first, it was difficult to jump back into them, having not studied at all for half a week, but once she focused on the books and ignored the distractions of the Burrow, it became slightly easier. By six o'clock at night, her eyelids felt like lead. She remained awake just long enough to eat dinner with the rest of the family before calling it a night.<p>

When she woke the following morning, Hermione felt for the scar underneath her hair. She couldn't feel anything. She continued to search, but when she did finally find it, it was nothing more than a small, barely raised line running down a short distance on her head. She smiled and pushed her hair back into place. _'If this was left to heal without magic, I'd still be wrapped up like a mummy!'_ Hermione slipped out of the bed and tried to find something to do with her day. Mr. Weasley and Harry had returned to work, unable to convince the ministry that they needed yet another day off due to the medical emergency, and Ron could refuse Quidditch practice no longer. With everyone either returning to work or simply out of the house, Hermione was left with Mrs. Weasley and Ginny.

When she had finally woken up in St. Mungo's hospital days earlier, Hermione learned that the wedding had been postponed another week. She felt terrible, knowing how long they had been planning for the wedding, but Ginny didn't seem as bothered by it. "Things are getting worse for Harry at work. Even dad's been struggling with the overtime, and he's not even in the department meant to deal with all the attacks."

"How many prisoners escaped?" Hermione asked as the two young witches sat together in Ginny's room upstairs. They had been experimenting with different hair styles to try for the wedding when the topic came back up.

Ginny shook her head. "I'm not sure. Harry seems to think there were only nineteen that got away but dad says that the paperwork had been filed for twenty-seven missing inmates."

Hermione frowned. "Couldn't they just count the number of empty cells and figure it out that way?" It seemed logical enough.

"Well yeah…" Ginny started, shrugging. "But we managed to hold our own against them when they tried to get away, and with Azkaban being surrounded by water…" Ginny shrugged again, not finishing her sentence, but Hermione knew what she had meant. _'Their bodies had fallen into the sea and been taken away by the currents.'_ The thought made Hermione's stomach twist uncomfortably. _'What a horrible way to go…at least with a body, their families would have something to set to rest, something to mourn, some sort of closure. But without a body, what happened then?'_ As her mind wandered as another thought came to her. _'Families…do people like that even have families left to care about them?'_

* * *

><p>By the third day on bed-rest, Hermione was beginning to go stir-crazy. It was getting harder to concentrate on her studies since the Burrow was always occupied, if not by the boys, then by Molly and Ginny still carrying on with wedding arrangements and absolute last minute plan changes. Hermione hadn't been outside in days and with her head nearly completely healed, the idea of lying in a bed for another day made her groan with boredom. With Ginny's help, the two witches carefully levitated the bed back upstairs, bumping it into the narrow walls more than a few times on its way up. "Ginny, are you going to the shops today?"<p>

"No," Ginny answered. "Mum wants to go over the menu one more time to make sure we have all the ingredients we need."

"She's cooking everything herself? That's completely mental. Even if she cooks from now until the wedding, she'll never be able to finish in time." Hermione remarked with concern.

Ginny agreed and corrected her. "Of course not. We're having two ceremonies. Harry says the ministry is covering the public one, then we'll just be taking care of the private reception. It'll be small, but mum still wants to prepare everything herself. She says it's sort of like her wedding gift to us."

They returned to the main floor of the house and Hermione picked up her beaded handbag with a smile. "That's really nice, Ginny." Molly had always been sentimental in that way. Even as Hermione glanced down at the brand new handmade sweater Mrs. Weasley had made for her, she could feel the motherly love that was stitched into every knitting. She stuffed it into her handbag, not wanting to leave it on the sofa, and turned back to Ginny. "I need to get some fresh air. I've been cooped up indoors for too long. I think I'll head out to the book store and pick up something new to read."

The bookstore was a relief before she even set foot into the store. Just to be out of the house was enough to refresh Hermione entirely. The smell of freshly inked pages and crisp bindings was euphoric and as Hermione roamed through the aisles, fluttering her finger tips over the rows of books, she was in heaven. She plucked a book off one of the shelves and flipped it open to read. It was a collection of short stories written by various witches and wizards throughout the ages. They were respective leaders in their fields, aurors, potion masters, expert herbologists, and even a few exceptionally brilliant professors. She skimmed through the pages, smiling down at the book in her hands.

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><p>Having finally dragged himself out of the manor, Lucius tried to return to some sort of normalcy in his day to day life. <em>'She's gone and there's nothing you can do to change that.' <em>He told himself again as he left the manor, trying to believe it this time. A trip to the bookstore was quite possibly one of the few highlights of his errands for the day, so he hit that first. A few items he had ordered weeks ago had finally arrived and it was as good of an excuse to get out of the manor as he could come up with. He gave Mimbi the less enjoyable tasks—picking up fresh plants for the manor's back gardens and checking in on a notice he had gotten from the ministry earlier in the week regarding a few items that had gone missing during the home searches. Both of which, he had little to no interest in doing himself. But at least with the bookstore, he could check for any new arrivals that might prove read-worthy enough to lift his mood.

The shop owner greeted him politely with a friendly smile and a wave, to which Lucius nodded wordlessly and moved on to the nearest set of bookshelves. Potions, Charms, Giants, and Centaurs. Lucius passed on all of them, walking down the aisle slowly as he scanned over the spines of each book for something interesting. He was just about to turn down the next row of bookcases when a thick book to his left caught his eye. _Muggle Studies_. At first he scoffed at it, shifting his eyes away from the title, but as he moved away from the bookshelf and started down the next aisle, it stuck in his mind. The day he had brought Hermione to her family's destroyed home, he learned about them through her stories and the photo album she shared with him. They were little details of their lives, insignificant little facts and elements, but they all added up to somehow equal her. If she had different parents, a different life outside of the muggle world, he didn't doubt that she would be a completely different person, but would that be because of her upbringing and her experiences, or because of her family heritage? The purity of the blood that rushed through her veins, or the memories and motivations that pumped that blood so strongly straight through to her heart? _'Not anymore…'_ Lucius thought, correcting himself coldly. It didn't matter anymore whether her blood was as pure as his, not when she was already dead. She could have the purest blood of them all now and it wouldn't make a damn of a difference. She'd still be just as dead. _'You're doing it again…thinking about her.'_ Lucius reminded himself silently. He had found himself thinking about her off and on for the past week, ever since he had learned of her death.

He shoved the book further into the bookcase and stomped off to the next aisle. It wasn't until he lifted his head and looked over the various rows of shelves that he saw her. Across the shop, facing the opposite direction, was a head with full, unruly brown curls. He looked down at the shelves in front of him, pulling his brows down in a frown. _'You're driving yourself mad. Seeing her now, really? Have you lost your senses this quickly, you old fool? Just let it go, move on, and she'll be nothing more than a brief smudge on your past.'_ He took his own advice at first, keeping his eyes down below the bookcases and even pulling a few off the shelves and burying his face in them for a bit. But after a few moments of trying to distract himself, his eyes drifted back upwards as he lifted his head over the rows again.

She was still there. He bit at the inside of his cheek, twisting his mouth into a distorted scowl, uncertain of what to do. _'If you go other there, you'll risk making a fool out of yourself. What do you plan on saying? 'Sorry, but I thought you were someone else who I already know to be dead but…just checking?' Don't be such an idiot…'_ He slumped back behind the shelves and grabbed another book to distract himself. He couldn't focus on it long enough to even grasp what the topic was before he found himself eyeing the woman across the shop again. "This is ridiculous." He muttered under his breath and shoved the book back on the shelf.

Lucius moved down his aisle and took to the perimeter of the store until he was at the end of her aisle. She was smiling as her eyes darted all over the pages of the book she was holding. Her chestnut curls rolled down to cover her shoulders and just barely touched her shoulder blades. Her cheeks lifted slightly as she grinned down at the book and before he could see what he was doing, he was smiling as well. But it didn't make any sense. He was told she had been killed. Draco saw her body, and when Lucius had gone to the Burrow to investigate, it was empty. All these days where he cursed himself for letting her go to Azkaban, he knew how badly it was bound to end and yet he let her go anyway, practically sacrificing herself for the sake of the Order. And for what? So he could tear himself down each and every night with the guilt of it all, drinking himself to sleep and then waking up the next day to do it all over again. His smile faded as he tried to understand that all of that was for nothing. She was alive and she was standing right down the aisle from him, smiling sweetly and looking just as beautifully as he remembered. "You're alive," He finally breathed out, nearly speechless with the shock of seeing her.

Though his voice was soft and in a tone she couldn't quite identify, she recognized it was his immediately and turned to look down the aisle. He was staring at her and when she didn't reply, he started walking towards her. Hermione glanced back down at her book. "I'm trying to shop, Malfoy. If there's nothing specific that you need—,"

"I was told you were dead!" He cut her off. "I **believed** you were dead." His eyes bounced over her face, examining every inch as his mind raced with questions while it tried to process what he was seeing. "It's been days, nearly a week, and I haven't heard from you."

Hermione closed her book and turned to face him with a fire in her eyes. "If I recall correctly, Malfoy, the last time you saw me, you compared me to a dog."

"I did not!" He exclaimed, trying to keep his voice down if only because of their setting.

"I believe you phrased it as 'a dog with a bone' if I'm not mistaken." She shot back at him, thrusting the book onto the shelf beside her.

Lucius started to deny it again but as he recalled their last conversation, he knew that she was right. He shook his head and attempted to steer the conversation back to where it needed to be. "I…" He shook his head again and had to start over, but he wasn't exactly sure of what he wanted to say. Finally with a defeated sigh, he replied, "When I didn't hear from you, I was worried."

Hermione eyed him with doubt. "Worried? If I were dead, then what's there left to worry about? You'd be free. You wouldn't have to help the Order anymore. I would have thought you'd be glad if I were dead."

"I…" He hesitated again. Everything she was saying should have been the truth, it was logical and well thought out, but it wasn't at all what he had been thinking and obsessing over this past week. "Worried wasn't the right word." He agreed but there was still something he was holding back.

He was staring at her, still looking over her face but as her impatience was growing tired of him, his eyes slowly settled on hers. They had soften and although she rarely saw the same type of hatred and coldness in them that she had seen years ago before Voldemort was defeated, they were still even gentler now than she had seen before. _'What is he saying? What is he even here for? Is he angry that I'm not actually dead? Well sorry to disappoint!' _Thoughts were flying through her head so quickly but as many times as she looked away from his stare, every time she kept looking back, he was still fixed on her. _'If he wasn't worried, but he's wasn't glad either, then what else could there be? He's not making any sense…'_ Her thoughts paused, screeching to a stop as another idea came to her. It was the way he was looking at her that made her wonder. _'Does he mean that he _missed_ me?'_

Before she could consider the possibility any longer, his eyes shifted away from hers, flickering behind her towards the checkout corner where the shop owner was still standing. Lucius looked back at Hermione and drew his voice down to a hushed tone. "We have no privacy here. Come back to the Manor with me."

In his haste, his words came out quicker than he had intended, making it sound more like a command than a request. Of course, it wasn't received quite as well as he had hoped and as she glanced back at the bookshelf beside them, she refused. "I haven't finished shopping. I've just barely started."

Lucius groaned quietly. _'She doesn't want to come with you, you fool. She'd rather stay in this dusty bookstore all day than spend another second with you, can't you see that?'_ He hushed back his insecurities and tried to think of what had always worked with Narcissa. When she wouldn't listen to a word he was saying, what caught her attention? Lucius motioned towards the books next to them and tried again. "Pick out as many as you'd like and I'll purchase them for you. You can bring them back to the manor with you and read them in the library. I'm sure it's much more peaceful there than with your current _roommates_."He refused to acknowledge the Weasley as any more than that, not after Ron's constant pestering and Mr. Weasley's _official_ ministry raids on his home. She could live with them as long as she liked but that wouldn't earn them his respect.

"I don't need you to buy me anything, Lucius. I can pay for myself." She almost felt offended by his offer, as if she somehow couldn't afford to support herself, but when she shot him another harsh glance, she saw a desperation in his eyes that had her curious.

Every time she refused, whether it be his offer to buy books or her willingness to come back to the manor, he felt like she was pulling further and further away. No matter how horrible he felt this past week, it didn't fully hit him how badly he missed the spunky young witch's company until he saw her again in the bookstore. If he couldn't convince her to give him another shot, to let him share her company again, he knew he would lose that company forever. With the way the past week had been spent and how miserable he had felt, he not only knew that he enjoyed spending time with her, but he finally forced himself to admit it. As much as he wanted to remain prejudice and hateful, as much as he wanted to look at her and see nothing more than a mudblood, he knew now that he couldn't. He reached out for her hand and tried not to let his desperation show through as much as he knew that it would. "I'll buy out the whole bloody shop if I have to. Just give me an hour of your time. That's all I'm asking."

Hermione looked down at her hand in his and tried to think of a logical reason for why she hadn't already pulled it away. He was watching her, waiting for a reply, and although his words had already said it all, his eyes were still telling so much more. She knew that no matter what her reply, he would only accept yes for an answer. Hermione gently pulled her hand away from his and unlike she had experienced with Ron weeks ago, Lucius let her go respectfully, though regrettably. "You've got one hour, Malfoy, starting now."

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Let me know what you think in the reviews and thank you to everyone's who's given such amazing feedback already. You're all so sweet and it really is a treat to see such nice messages. I hope you all enjoy the rest of the story and as I stated above, apologies in advanced for the delay while I'm on vacation. If I can manage some miracle, Chapter 29 will be posted before I leave but I honestly don't see that happening since I leave in only a few days. But fingers crossed anyway!**_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	29. Chapter 29 - Part One

**_Author's Notes: Sorry, again, for the long wait. I knew it would be hard to get back into the rhythm of this story after taking a break during my vacation. Thank you for the sweet messages and reviews. They've really motivated me to keep writing. Having said that...while writing Chapter 29, I realized that if I wanted it to be written properly, it would end up being incredibly long. Close to 15k words, and that's just way too long. So I've decided to split the chapter up into two parts. This is part one and part two is the following chapter. I know I promised the goodies in this chapter, but because of the chapter being split, the naughty bits are actually in the NEXT chapter (Chapter 29 - Part Two). No worries though. That chapter is being uploaded at the same time as this one, so there won't be any extra waiting time._**

**_Anyway, enough mindless rambling. Enjoy and thank you for your patience and support. :)_**

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><p>Chapter 29 - Part One<p>

The Manor was as massively empty as she remembered it to be. Though only a week had passed since she last stepped foot onto its hard stone floors, Hermione still felt incredibly tiny in such a huge estate. She half-expected Malfoy's house elf, Mimbi to greet them in the foyer when they arrived but to her surprise the tiny creature was no where to be found. Hermione frowned. _'Just him and I then…terrific,'_ she groaned sarcastically in her head.

Lucius began walking towards the nearest staircase and Hermione followed, rolling her eyes when he didn't say a word. _'Couldn't we have just apparated straight to the library like always? If he thinks he'll get me to stay here longer by dragging me through the entire Manor on foot, he's got another thing comin—,'_

"Have you eaten yet today?" Lucius cut off her thoughts as he paused at the top of the stairs to wait for her. "There's a small dining room just down this way if you'd like—,"

"No." Hermione interrupted as she reached the final step a few seconds after him. I've eaten already," she lied. She had skipped lunch, expecting to grab something quick on her way back from the library.

"Well," Lucius started. "I had planned on us spending time in my personal library. It's a bit further down here but it's just as nice as the other one."

Hermione's eyes burned into the back of his head as he began walking down a corridor to their left. _'His personal library? I thought the other library was his…how many libraries does one person need?'_ Hermione wondered bitterly even though she herself had been caught in the past proclaiming that there just never is enough books, no matter how many there are. Even at Hogwarts, she had devoured the books in the old school's library before her third year had completed, and that was on top of her regular class workload. Still, it didn't sit right with her and as they walked down the corridor, she voiced her opinion. "Why the change? I've grown rather fond of the regular library." She asked, playing stubbornly coy with her latter remark.

The tall blonde wizard in front of her paused, waiting for her to once again catch up with his long strives. "I'm having the library redone. It's not fit for visitors at the moment." Lucius replied coolly without missing a beat. He always seemed to have an answer for everything.

They walked side by side further down the hallway. Curious and still not quite convinced by his answer, Hermione drilled him with another question. "Oh really? How exciting. What are you having done?"

Lucius raised an eyebrow, catching on to her false tones, especially given her original reluctance to even come to the Manor in the first place. "Just some decorating but it's in shambles at the moment, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"Mhm..." Hermione replied calmly, still not believing his statements in the least.

They came to a turn and Lucius start down the hallway to their right, but Hermione kept going straight. "This library is just down this way." He informed her but when he realized that she hadn't taken the turn with him, he doubled back until he found her. She had recognized the corridor they were in as one of the ones just outside the main cluster of smaller hallways by the other library, the one she was used to going to. When he took the turn in the other direction, she must have darted away from him before he could stop her. As he approached the open door to their usual meeting place, Lucius took in a deep breath. He knew what was inside and knew what Hermione was now looking at and as he finally reached the door, he peered inside to see her standing in the center of the room.

The library she had come to know well since returning to the wizarding world months ago was, as he put it, in shambles. There were empty bottles scattered around the room, though heavily littered around and on the sofa. The wall beside the door and even the door itself was splattered with liquor and at the base where the floor met the wall was a pile of broken glass. No doubt this spot had been used as target practice at some point with the empty bottles. Lucius paused in the doorway and watched her as her wide eyes scanned over the disgraceful surroundings. It wasn't until she heard the weight of his shoes on top of the broken glass that she turned back around to face him. "If you'll come this way, I can show you to the other library now." He stood by the doorway waiting for her but all the previous confidence and pride that had always been held in his voice was missing, drained from the source as he tried to pretend this mess of a library didn't even exist anymore.

"Lucius…" Hermione breathed out quietly, still taking in the state of the room around her. "What happened?" Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

When she used his first name now of all times, he hated hearing it. Her soft, concerned tone, mixed with the small bit of shock that he could see in her wide, judging eyes all told him one thing. She was pitying him. She didn't even know what had happened yet but he could tell she had begun drawing her own conclusions. "It's not important." He dismissed and took another step into the room, gently grabbing her hand as it hung loosely down by her side.

She let him take it but as he started to walk back out of the library, bringing her along with him, she shook her head and pulled her hand away. "There's glass everywhere." She pointed at the sofa area in the center of the room. "On the floor, even on the sofa cushions. What happened?"

The young witch wasn't angry exactly. Worried would be a better word but somehow Lucius doubted Hermione Granger would ever feel worried about anything to do with him unless her precious Order were somehow at risk. He remembered that Mimbi wasn't there. _'Perhaps she thinks I killed the bloody house elf. Drank myself into a rage and finally got rid of the obnoxious thing.'_ Lucius tried to guide her back out of the room again. "Nothing. I had a few bad nights and Mimbi hasn't had time to clean yet. It's not important. Come on now—,"

"If you're just going to lie to me, Malfoy, then what's the point in bringing me here?" Hermione questioned loudly as she withdrew from him again. "I can just leave if you don't plan on being truthful."

Lucius groaned at her stubbornness and stood by the door impatiently, having given up on trying to bring her out of the room himself. "Are you coming, Miss Granger? I've already told you. I had a few off nights. That's all." Lucius repeated flatly. What did she want him to do? Sit down and have a therapy session on the topic? Perhaps scold him for his drinking habit and somehow convince him to change his ways? He nearly scoffed out loud at the thought, though the way she was still standing firmly in the library made him second guess how ridiculous of a guess those actually were.

Hermione remained in the room and tried again. "When I first came here, Malfoy, you said that while in this room, you would always tell the truth, as would I. Are you going back on your word now?"

She was pinning him in place uncomfortably by using his own words against him, but she was taking them completely out of context. "We're not playing a game." He informed her briskly and motioned again towards the door.

Hermione ignored his reply and walked instead closer towards the sofa. She sat down on her usual side and asked again, "Are you going back on your word, Malfoy?"

"What are you doing?" Lucius frowned in a mixture of frustration and concern as he left the doorway urgently to pull her up off the sofa cushion by her elbow. "You're going to cut yourself." He warned as he glanced down at the cushion to make sure it was clear of any broken shards.

He didn't realize he had left his hand resting on her elbow until she addressed him again, her voice suddenly softer and more reserved. "You don't trust me anymore, is that it? Now that I'm back with the Order and fought against your side at Azkaban…" She let her words trail off, unsure of how to end it. Of course he didn't trust her, the same way she didn't trust him. They were on opposite sides and no matter what silly rules they once had in this room, it had all changed now.

"It's not about that." Lucius answered quickly, still frowning at the broken glass that was littered around them, on the floor, the small coffee table, and the furniture. It was a mess, an embarrassing, sickening mess and he just wanted to get her away from all of it so that he could make up some excuse for it all. "I just don't want you hurting yourself so if you don't mind, we can just go to the other library and you can read your books—,"

"Lucius." His name on her lips stopped him. He had been turning away with the intent to go back towards the door, but as he heard her beside him, soft as a bird and just as sweet, he stopped. If she spoke like that and asked him again, as much as he hated the idea, he just might have told her the truth. That he had spent the past few days locked away in this room, drunk and upset over someone he thought he couldn't possibly care any less about. The guilt had ate at him, just as much as the self-hatred, and as he tried to forget Hermione entirely in those three days, she was all his drunken mind seemed to fix itself on. He waited for her to speak, to ask him again what had happened, and he would sing like a sinner confessing his crimes. Hesitantly, Hermione asked, "Was it Narcissa again? Did she send another owl?"

It was almost too much to believe and as he heard her finally ask her question, he couldn't help but drop his head down in front of him and chuckle, rocking it loosely as he shook out his answer. "No," he replied honestly with another short chuckle. "It wasn't _Narcissa_." He could sense Hermione eyeing him. He lifted his head and gave her the best answer he could that wasn't a lie. "I suppose you could say this is just how I chose to cope with some of the consequences of my new found allegiances. Turns out working for the V.R.S. isn't as stress-free as some might think. Now can we go?" Hermione pulled out her wand, pointing it at the glass around them and Lucius rolled his eyes. "What are you doing? I told you, my house elf will be back and she'll clean this up then."

"It'll only take a minute." Hermione retorted as she waved her wand over the sofa and then the small table. "I'm sure you overwork her anyway. Where'd you say she was?" Hermione asked as she moved over towards his side of the sofa to get rid of the glass.

Lucius stepped out of the way, irritated, but allowed her to continue. "I have her out running some errands. She'll be thrilled to see you." Hermione smiled at his comment. Although she hadn't particularly thought of the small, sweet house elf this past week while she recovered first at the hospital and then at the Burrow, she did miss her. As the broken glass and various messes were cleaned up with the aid of Hermione's wand, Lucius waited for her to sit down before sitting down shortly after her. "Happy now?" He asked sinisterly.

Hermione smiled sarcastically and replied with just as much attitude as he expected. "Yes, very." She settled into her corner of the sofa while Lucius watched her.

"How's your head?" He asked curiously.

"Fine." Hermione started, wondering how exactly he had found out about her injury. "It's nearly done healing but I think there's going to be a scar." Lucius nodded silently only glancing at her head briefly before giving up on trying to figure out where exactly she had sustained her injury. Her hair hid the scar perfectly, although it wasn't very big anyway. "When did you find out?"

Lucius shrugged, rolling his shoulder back and drawing his arm up to rest on the back of the sofa between them. "The night after Azkaban. I didn't believe it to be true, but when I went to the Weasley's home, no one was there."

"They were all at the hospital. I was unconscious but I was told everyone stayed for as long as they could before having to go back to work." Hermione explained and again, Lucius nodded silently. "Who told you I was dead?"

"Draco," Malfoy answered smoothly. "He wasn't exactly excited to see me and I suppose he knew that it would bother me if you didn't make it back." Lucius recalled the cocky, satisfied smirk Draco had worn as he delivered the awful news of Hermione's death to his father. He clenched his jaws together at the fresh memory.

"Would it?" Hermione asked unexpectedly and Lucius eyed her. "I mean, did it? Bother you?" She explained hesitantly.

He grit his teeth tighter behind his lips and debated lying. It would be easy and she would believe it if he said no, but her previous warning rang through his head. This room wasn't meant for lies. It wasn't meant for deceit or sneaky political tactics from either side. If he lied now, what would even be the point? He nodded, answering briefly. "Yes, it did."

Hermione quieted as she let his answer sink in. If the roles were reversed and he was the one injured, potentially killed in an attack, would she too feel _bothered_ by it? Her mind wanted to answer no, wanted to express that he meant nothing to her, but even as she thought it, she knew at least part of it was a lie. If he truly meant so little, then what had brought her to the manor today when she could have just as easily gone back to the burrow and ignored his pleads for her company. The thought made her wonder what exactly her purpose there was supposed to be. The day had started off well enough with a pleasant trip into town and now she was sitting in Malfoy's library yet again for the umpteenth time over the past few months. And yet she still wasn't completely sure of what the purpose was, what all of these visits and hours together had produced, though she could take a guess or two. A change of topic was needed, and quickly. "You were at the bookstore today. Did you get anything new?"

Lucius seemed off-put by the sudden shift in their conversation but with as much courtesy as a host could have, he nodded stiffly and reached into his deep cloak pockets. "They're not exactly new, however they are new to my collection. I meant to have them picked up earlier but I've been busy as of late." Without having to explain further, Lucius pulled a couple of books from his pocket and enlarged them. One was a deep brown shade with slightly yellowing pages, but otherwise not too badly beaten up, while the other one was a newer, red-leather bond book. As Hermione peered down at them, she looked puzzled. The red book, she recognized as a book focusing on Transfiguration but the other book had no title anywhere to be found. It was curious and although she never claimed to know every book and every author in the world, she at least expected this one to be titled for identification purposes. "May I?" She asked, motioning towards one of the books, and Malfoy handed it to her. The pages and spine crinkled as she carefully lifted the lid. There was an old portrait on the first page. A tall, thin man with a graying beard and jet black hair stood proudly beside an equally tall brunette woman. Their arms entwined lovingly and down by their sides were two identical twin girls, both with the same striking black hair as the man. The caption underneath the endearing picture read '_**In eternal dedication to my family. Without your support, I would not be the type of man I am today. The type of man you've always deserved.**_'

Malfoy watched as she read over the words and glanced back up at the family portrait. She flipped the book over and turned to the last page. It was blank and as she turned to the previous page before it, it was only another family portrait, this one with names and ages listed beneath. The man, Thomas, and his wife, Margaret were said to be in their 40s and the little twin girls standing with them, Samantha and Sarah were listed as being ten years old. Hermione's eyes flickered over their smiling faces and smiled in return. "They seem happy." She noted and asked, "What is the book about? It doesn't say."

Lucius looked down at the picture she had been looking at but didn't match her smile. Instead, he nodded towards the book and offered, "You can read it. If I tell you what it's about, it'll ruin the impact it's meant to have." Hermione turned the book back over and flicked past the first few pages. It didn't have a massive list of publications and legal notes like most books did. Instead, there were just a handful of other family pictures, most with just the two daughters. They seemed to be the focal point and Hermione wondered if perhaps the book was about them and their life. "I think you'll find it stimulating." Lucius noted.

Hermione enjoyed the thought of spending the rest of the evening reading a new book she'd never heard of, but that wasn't what she had come to the Manor to do. Although her thoughts and previous anger had taken a slight turn when she realized the absolute mess he had created for himself over the past few days, she still didn't want to spend more time in the Manor than absolutely necessary. "This isn't what you asked me here for, is it? I can read just as easily at the library back in town. So unless you have anything else to discuss, I'd rather not make this an all-day event."

Her words mixed with her oddly formal tone gave him pause. She had only just arrived and she was already wanting to leave. What sort of progress was that making? If she left the Manor now, what was to say she would return at all? Sure, she could come back every now and then to get information for the Order as they had agreed but how long would that arrangement continue? Lucius frowned and motioned back down towards the book in her hands. "Read that, and when you discover a question you'd like to ask me, I'll answer it. No question limit and you won't have to answer any of mine in return. Does that sound fair enough?"

"What makes you think I have questions? Unless you've got information that I can take back to the Order, we don't have anything else to discuss." Hermione explained and Lucius took care not to miss her overly sassy tone. It wasn't something he was interested in getting used to, but he couldn't deny that the muggle-born witch had an obvious issue with him based on their last parting.

"Just read the book and I'm certain you'll become curious about a thing or two." Lucius explained but Hermione continued to look doubtful. He sighed and took back the book, turning to one of the pages with a family portrait. He pointed to the tall man and handed the book back. "This man was a death eater. That's why you've never heard of him or his book. It's not exactly widely available to the general public."

As if she had just been told that the book was covered in a layer of boogies or flesh eating maggots, Hermione looked down at it with a mixture of confusion and disgust. "What are you doing with it? With the Ministry constantly dropping by unexpectedly, do you really think this is be the best book to keep around?"

"Just read it. It may not be exactly as you think it is. I'm sure the Ministry wouldn't have the slightest idea this book even exists, and even if they did, I wouldn't imagine them having any particular issues with it. You'll see. Just read."

Hermione debated. If she stayed to read, that would mean spending even more time at the Manor with him than she cared to do, but the way he was making it sound, she knew that he was trying to entice her, and it was working. She looked down at the book and asked, "What sort of questions would I be asking you? Anything useful for the Order?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes. _'Her and her precious Order…She's purposely making this harder than it should be just to spite me.'_ He pointed at the book in her hands and repeated. "Just read. You're a quick enough reader anyway so what's the harm? If I'm wrong and you have no questions for me, then I'll take the loss and our meetings from now on out will be strictly business."

"They should be strictly business already." Hermione grumbled. Lucius flickered his eyes upwards again but before he could repeat himself for a third time, Hermione stopped him. "I know, I know. '_Just read.'_ Fine, deal."

She turned to the first page and just as she was beginning to read, she heard Lucius beside her reply with a satisfied smirk, "Good." She nearly clamped the book shut to shout at him. He always had to get the final word. Choosing to take the high road this time around, Hermione shot him a warning glare to tell him to shut up and went back to reading the first page.

It started off on a different foot than she expected. The first chapter was spent introducing the author, his wife, and their two daughters. Just like any typical wizarding family, the girls were excited about all the adventures they were sure to have at Hogwarts once they turned eleven and much like a good father should, the author, Thomas, was sharing his own Hogwarts stories with them. He told them of how he had been sorted into Slytherin his first day, much to his relief, and how by his second year, he was playing as one of the Quidditch team's beaters. His classes were intriguing, though the memories he most adored were the ones with his fellow classmates. That was when he mentioned their mother. The girls were a pair of giggling messes, ready to burst at the seams while he explained how they had met. She was a year younger than him and had been sorted into Ravenclaw. Because of both their difference in year and house, their time together was extremely limited. But from the very first day he saw her walking down the long corridors, he had fallen head over heels for the little brunette with a passion for herbology. The girls giggled again and their father continued his story.

_ "You see, your mother had made just as many friends as I did while at Hogwarts, but somehow our groups never seemed to mix. The only time I saw her for longer than a pass in the hallway or during meals in the Great Hall, was Quidditch matches. Every match, I would scan over the Ravenclaw seating area of the stands and look for her. At first, she only came to a few games. I suppose she rather spent her time in the herbology greenhouse, studying plants and fungi and all those things. But when she would come to the Quidditch pitch and watch me play, it drove me to do better than I've ever done before. Slytherin must have set a new record for number of games won that year because before I knew it, I was seeing her more and more sitting in the stands, clapping when Slytherin scored and booing when we were losing. Of course, that's assuming we weren't playing Ravenclaw." He laughed and the girls giggled together, their bright brown eyes reflecting back the innocence that he remembered seeing in himself and their mother so many years ago. It was a different time, a different place, and no matter how vivid and happy the memories were as he told them his tale, he knew that those times had most definitely passed._

_ "One day, it was announced that there would be a ball for the holidays. Everyone was rushing around, trying to find dates to take with them, and the girls that had already been asked to attend were busy searching for the perfect dress, the perfect jewelry, everything. My friends had all found dates, having asked the girls they fancied in the early days but I was a complete mess. You see, your mother was just as beautiful then as she is now and me on the other hand, I had the courage of a quivering little puppy." The girls awed at his confession and he continued. "But I knew that if I didn't ask her soon, someone else would. I suppose all the other boys were just as nervous as I was because with only a week left before the ball, I finally chalked up the nerve to ask her, stumbling over my words and sweating buckets, but I managed to do it, and do you know what she said?" The girls both cheered loudly, happily stating that their mother had said yes and that they finished their schooling, married, and had the pair of them ten years ago._

_ To their disappointment, Thomas shook his head with a pout and exclaimed, "She said no! I had sorted my hair just perfectly and made sure my clothes were spotless and crisp, but when I finally asked her, she had turned me down." His daughters protested, outraged that their parents hadn't lived the fairytale romance that every little girl thought their parents had._

_ "What did you do? Yeah, dad! What'd you do?" The girls asked curiously._

_ He shrugged and replied, "Well, I did the only thing I could do. I waited, and waited, and then waited some more until I could try again. It wasn't until my fifth year that she finally agreed to go on a date with me." He leaned in closer to the girls and added under hushed tones, "And just between you and me, I think she only agreed because I bribed her with a rather large sack of plant seeds she had been searching all around Hogsmead for." The two girls giggled again and their father smiled. "So you see girls, though I'm sure your years at Hogwarts will be much different from mine and your mother's, the important thing you need to remember is this." He paused, leaving the girls hanging on his words, waiting for him to finish. When he thought that they couldn't take the waiting any longer, he finished. "Ignore silly boys all together and focus on your studies. That's the key!"_

_ "Aw, dad!" The girls groaned. Leave it to a father to forever protect his daughters, especially from boys!_

_ Thomas laughed, listening to them start to discuss the types of boys they'd like to meet at Hogwarts. They started joking together, saying that they wouldn't want someone who played Quidditch because he wouldn't have enough time to spend with them because he'd be stuck up on a broomstick way up high in the air all day. "Okay, girls. Time for bed. Go get ready and your mother will be in soon to say good night." The girls groaned again, claiming that they weren't tired and that their bed-time should be extended, despite it already being late enough. Thomas laughed again and left them to discuss the injustice of a set bed time in general amongst themselves._

Hermione smiled, remember similar conversations with her parents when she was a child, arguing bed-times and discussing the importance of school over boys. The thoughts made her miss her own parents and she made a subconscious note to make the time to visit them once everything settled down with the V.R.S. She turned to the next chapter and realized this was where the story would take its dramatic turn. The years had skipped ahead and while Thomas's daughters were away at Hogwarts for their third years, he was approached with an offer. At first it had only come from his close friends. A war was said to be starting and the time to pick sides had come. Being of pureblood, with a wife and children to support, his friends used these responsibilities to convince him his best option was to join them. He knew nothing of the man they called the 'Dark Lord', only that he was not someone to underestimate. It started with a few simple tasks. Sneak this item into this particular building at a certain time and his participation would be complete for the time being. But as the years went on and the war became more and more prevalent in the everyday lives of wizards and witches everywhere, the tasks he was assigned became morally heavier. Sneaking an item into a building had been turned into smuggling a person into a building, or worse even, smuggling a body out of one.

By the third chapter, and then half of the fourth, his marriage had crumbled. Though he had agreed to join this Dark Lord years ago for the sake of his family, it had done nothing but ruin the very things he valued most in life. Margaret agreed to stay with him until the girls were through with their education and with that day quickly approaching, Thomas was in a panic. The war was just around the corner, or so he had been told for the past few nerve-wrecking years, and if by the end of it, he had nothing left to come home to, what was the point in even coming home at all?

The fourth chapter had spiraled. The author's thoughts became sporadic, panicked, and for lack of a better word, psychotic. His wife, his dear Margaret had intercepted an owl regarding a rather gruesome job he had been assigned and as any intelligent witch would do, she left. The girls were in their final year at Hogwarts but she couldn't stand to stay under the same roof as a 'monster', as she had called him one night during a particularly heated argument.

The war had finally erupted, with the Dark Lord, Voldemort, leading the side Thomas had chosen to join. The fifth chapter explained in brief, distant detail the actual fighting and battles themselves. It was as if the author had completely shut down, and as Hermione read on, she found she couldn't exactly blame him. His life had been shattered. His wife had left him and with his nearly-grown daughters almost ready to start their own lives, the only thing he had to offer them was not the safety he was promised years ago when joining Voldemort, but a terrifyingly uncertain future that he knew he wouldn't be a part of. Whether he would be killed in battle or sent to Azkaban for the rest of his days, he knew that his life wouldn't be spent with his children, and eventually the grandchildren that he had hoped to hold in his arms one day. None of that was possible anymore and as he tried to quit, tried to free himself from the decision he had made long ago, he realized quickly that it wouldn't be so easy.

By the sixth and final chapter, Hermione's eyes darted wildly over the pages. The author had written of how he was going to what was being referred to by his fellow death eaters as the battle to end all battles. The final stand off. He sounded relieved and even explained that he hoped to someday, somehow, reunite with his family again. Perhaps his daughters would forgive him for everything he had done over the years, as horrible as they were. If only they knew that he had no choice. Every time he had tried to refuse, tried to switch allegiances, his family was the first and only bargaining chip that those on Voldemort's side needed to pull him back in. They would mention his daughters by names and remark on how well they were doing with their studies. They would ask sinisterly how his wife was, when Thomas knew that they neither cared nor pretended to care how his family was. It was all just to remind him that even if he somehow managed to get away from them, go into hiding to stop helping the Dark Lord, they would still know where to find his family. He couldn't risk that, and so for years, he continued to aid the Dark Lord.

Much of the final chapter was spent in rambles, confessing various crimes and pleading that somehow his actions would be forgiven. The author seemed even more upset than before, and then Hermione read the final words left on the bottom of the last page. _**'I am going to do my duty****—****my final duty to this monster of a Lord, and when my time is through, I will cleanse my hands of it all. My family will regain a loyal husband and a loving father. Whether I spend it as a free man, or locked up like an animal in a cage, I will be the man that they deserve.'**_

Hermione turned the page and was met with the same family portrait she had seen before she started reading the book. She flipped the page over and searched for more of the story, but that was all that was left. Just the portrait of the happy, smiling family, and the author's final words lingering in her thoughts. Hermione paused, staring down at the picture, and spoke quietly, "I've never heard of this man before." Malfoy's head perked up. He had been reading another book he had plucked off the shelves hours ago and while Hermione read quietly beside him, she had nearly forgotten he was in the room until she finished with the book. "The ending is odd. What happened to him? It doesn't say."

Lucius closed the book he had been reading and asked gently. "What do you think happened?"

"I don't know…" Hermione began, looking back down at the picture of the once-happy family. "If he had been sent to Azkaban before he could finish writing the rest of the book, that would explain why it ended so abruptly." Hermione answered.

As he listened to her, Malfoy slowly rocked his head from side to side, and her words paused. "You've never heard of him because he was a nobody, just another one of Voldemort's pawns. And because he was nobody, it's unclear what fate he faced." Hermione was still staring down at the picture and Lucius wanted nothing more than to know what she was thinking. Was she upset that the story ended so horrible? Or perhaps she was happy, believing that a murdering, criminal death eater like Thomas got what he deserved. Lucius decided not to ask, afraid of what the answer would be.

"I think they did that on purpose." Hermione finally spoke and it made Lucius wonder exactly what she meant. She caught him staring at her and explained. "If they leave it off like that, open ended, then it's up to the reader to decide what happened. You could say that he was sent to Azkaban for his crimes, or if you're a bit more morbid than that, you could say he died while serving the Dark Lord. But I suppose since the story really doesn't tell us what happened, you could also say that maybe some day he got bored with writing and just decided he wasn't going to write anymore." She shrugged at the last half-assed explanation she came up with. "We don't really know for certain and I think that's the point. We're given a story with all the details except for the ending and it's up to us to decide what the ending is."

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "That's an interesting way to look at it."

"Why?" Hermione asked. "What do you think happened to him?"

Malfoy's face tightened around the jaw line as his eyes lowered down to the book in her lap. It was still open, with the smiling faces of Thomas and his family staring back up at him. _'It would be easy to lie,'_ Lucius thought, same as before, but the same nagging response forced him to tell her the truth. If he lied to her now, what gave him the right to assume she would tell him the truth about anything he asked her in the future? He took in a silent breath and motioned towards the picture again. "He died before he could finish writing. This man, Thomas," Malfoy watched as Hermione flipped the pages back to another family portrait, this one focusing mainly on Thomas and his wife Margaret. "I knew him, years ago." Hermione looked at him suddenly, not expecting the answer he had given. "I didn't know him well, just in passing. I couldn't even remember any interactions I had with him until I saw this book for the first time long after meeting him and recognized his face in the pictures. I was young at the time, just barely starting my own family, but I had been recruited to the Dark Lord's service much like Thomas. It wasn't until years afterwards that I learned of his death."

"But how did you know he was dead? If you found this book years later, couldn't he have gotten away and gone into hiding?" Hermione questioned. Somewhere deep inside, she didn't want to admit so easily that the book's author and main character had died so shortly after writing the final few words.

"His wife." Lucius replied matter-of-factly. "When the Dark Lord was defeated and the Ministry had announced that the threat he posed was gone, Thomas's wife expected him to come back to them, to start over fresh. But he never returned, never contacted them and when his wife went back to their family home to seek him out, she sound this book. His wife and children read it and help hope, like you, that he was out there somewhere. They searched for him, checking Azkaban first of course, but he wasn't there. They combed through the seedy underbelly of the Wizarding world, going through every location they thought he might be. Through their travels, they learned of more locations they could check, but they still couldn't find him. Finally, only a few years later, the book was made into a handful of copies and scattered around to various places and to different owners. That was when they found what they were looking for. I was told that by making the copies and passing them out to people in our community, Margaret had hoped someone would see the portraits and recognize her husband. Much like a missing persons poster, except this was a delicate situation. She couldn't go around posting flyers on the sides of buildings and lamp posts when her husband was accused of so many horrible crimes. If she didn't find him first, the Ministry surely would and then she'd never see him again. So like I said, she did all that she could and passed out as many copies of the book as she had to various people within the community."

Hermione was listening intently, but as he came to the part about passing out the books, she needed clarification. "By 'community', what do you mean exactly?"

"Death eaters." Lucius answered flatly. Hermione nodded. It was what she had thought, which explained why the book wasn't titled, why the author and his family were only referred to by their first names, and why the book was so hard to find even now, years later. "From what I've been told, there were only twenty-five copies made, this being one of them." Lucius pointed at the book. "And out of those twenty-five, someone recognized Thomas from the portraits, just as Margaret had planned."

"But you said he had died." Hermione remarked, confused. "Was she too late? Did he die before she could find where he was hiding?"

Lucius shook his head solemnly. "Yes, she was too late, but he hadn't even gotten the chance to hide. Before the Dark Lord had been defeated, at one of the final few stand offs between the Order and Voldemort's death eaters, Thomas was killed. As chaotic as it was back then, what with people apparating away to safety right in the middle of the battle, while others were caught up in duels for their lives, the casualties that resulted were difficult to identify. Most death eaters didn't carry any sort of identifying items with them, except for their wands and you've seen first hand how easily wands get exchanged, sold, bought, etc. So when he had gone missing and his family searched for him, they spent years trying to find someone who knew the truth of what had happened."

The silence that filled the room when Lucius finished explaining the story felt cold and somehow unfulfilled. Hermione closed the book softly and handed it back to Lucius, who set it on the coffee table in front of them. "That's sad." She stated. Lucius nodded wordlessly and Hermione couldn't help but feel the thoughts begin to fill her mind. _'How many people met the same fate as Thomas? How many of Voldemort's followers had unknowingly died in the crossfire and never been properly set to rest by the people who mattered the most to them?'_ Hermione's eyes dragged up the length of the sofa and prickled curiously at the side of Malfoy's face. The bit of stubble shadowing the outline of his jaw was just barely beginning to show as the day began to draw into the early hours of night and Hermione thought of what his fate could possibly be now that he had started working with the V.R.S. He dodged a bullet already by surviving his time with Voldemort, and now he was back in the same situation, just with a different dark organization to serve. If he didn't survive this time, would his fate be similar to that of Thomas or would Hermione be given the opportunity to say her goodbyes, the goodbyes that Margaret and her daughter never had the chance to give to their husband and father.

Malfoy must have felt her eyes on him. Just as his pale gray stare slipped to the side to meet her gaze, her eyes flickered away quickly, falling back down to the book sitting on the coffee table. "Why did you have me read this?" She asked.

The corners of Lucius's mouth lifted gently into a smile as he peered at her beside him. "I thought you would find it intriguing. Did you not?"

"I did, I just somehow expected a different ending." Hermione answered.

"A happy ending?" Malfoy asked and Hermione nodded. "I'm sorry to have disappointed you." He smiled playfully but Hermione could tell that there was a certain truth to his words. Whether they could be solely singular to the book and the sad story it had told, or not, Hermione couldn't determine as easily.

As Hermione got up from the sofa to search through the walls of books surrounding them for something else to read to perhaps liven up her mood, she noticed Lucius glance towards the clock hanging on the wall behind his desk. "Did you have somewhere to be?" She asked, half-jokingly but also out of pure curiosity.

Lucius shifted in his seat when he realized he hadn't quite been as smooth in his glances as he thought he had been. He shrugged as if to brush her question away carelessly. "I had plans but I'd much rather spend my time here."

"Well don't let me get in the way." Hermione announced, slipping a book that she had been thumbing through back onto its spot on the shelf. Lucius looked uncomfortable and as Hermione walked back to the sofa with a different book in hand, she couldn't help but question his sudden change in demeanor. "What is it?"

"It's nothing. Just a prior engagement that I'd rather not waste my time with tonight." He answered shortly.

Hermione frowned as she placed two and two together. "It's them, isn't it? The V.R.S. They're asking you to do something else. What is it this time?"

"As I said, it's nothing." Lucius tried to brush her off again but it wasn't working. She was too stubborn and too quick to be swayed away from the conversation so easily. He sighed and explained. "Right now, there's a small, very small group taking over a remote muggle community up north. They're just there to gather supplies, but I was meant to be there with them." Hermione had begun shaking her head and Lucius added confidently, "They can survive without me for one night."

Hermione shook her head again, wondering why on earth he wasn't with them. Did he really believe that it was safe to skip out on his duties when he was already a lower rank than he was with Voldermort? And for what? To spend time in his library with a muggle-born? Somehow Hermione doubted that this information would go over well with the ex-death eaters he associated with. "If you're not there, they're going to suspect something. They may not jump straight to the conclusion that you've flipped sides, but they'll at the very least think that something's wrong. They'll come looking for you."

Lucius nodded silently, agreeing but not fully wanting to admit that his best judgment had been misplaced when he decided to spend the evening with Hermione rather than with the V.R.S. "You have to go." Hermione took him by surprise with her sudden announcement. Had she heard him correctly? Their group was planning on attacking and raiding an innocent group of muggles in order to pilfer their supplies, and she was somehow encouraging him to participate? Lucius frowned at her in confusion. She repeated her command. "You have to go, and I have to tell the Order. I can't believe we've wasted so much time already. You should have told me sooner." The tone in her voice wasn't exactly anger, more so disappointment, but she was so enthralled with the thoughts of what needed to be done, Lucius thought she might leave right in that moment.

"It won't be any use. By the time you alert the Order, and by the time they get there, we'll have already been gone. I told you, it's just a small group that's going. We had planned on going in and getting out quickly to avoid being detected by the surrounding communities." When he could tell that his words weren't calming her in the least, he tried a different approach. "Chances are, the Order already knows by now. With the attack on Azkaban being so recent, the Order's been on high alert this past week. At the sign of trouble, wizarding or muggle centered, if we're suspected to be a part of it, they'll find out about it."

His added attempts at comfort only seemed to settle her nerves about the Order. Hermione couldn't disregard his appointed duties to the V.R.S. as easily as Lucius seemed to have done, especially not after reading the story of Thomas, the death eater. Lucius suddenly regretted giving her the book, knowing that his untimely end was most likely front and center in her mind as she asked her next question. "What will they do when they realize you've simply decided not to go tonight?"

"I'll survive." Lucius answered bitterly, the sudden rush of every memory he had from his past punishments with Voldemort flooding his thoughts. Would the V.R.S. be the same? Perhaps worse? He looked back at Hermione and wondered if he left now, would she agree to come back and see him tomorrow? Would she agree to come back at all? He didn't want to take that chance, not after only just realizing that she was still alive.

"You have to go, Lucius." Hermione repeated, this time slipping his name in as casually as though she were reciting of a restaurant menu. It made him smile involuntarily, but as he realized what she was saying, his smile faded again.

"I don't know how long I'll be." He warned. "Will you be leaving?" He hated the way his words sounded. Too weak, too pathetic, but he couldn't stop himself from asking what he was fearing. As if to worsen the situation, his lips parted again and he sternly remarked. "I'd prefer if you stay."

Hermione was taken aback. Ever since she ran into him at the bookstore, she had noticed a difference in him. A change in his attitude, but she couldn't place it up until now. He was lonely, obviously. The manor was a cold, empty place and even with the semi-return of his son, it wasn't the same as having someone over as company to chat with, to read with, and to spend some leisure time around. She had been his break from the solitude and with her _gone_, for lack of a better term, for the past week, he must have realized how comforting that company of hers had been to him. It made the corners of her mouth perk upwards softly, gently lightening her eyes into a sweet smile. "I can't stay all night, for obvious reasons, but I'll stay until midnight at the latest, unless you return by then."

Lucius smiled, this time a voluntarily, genuine smile as he rose from the sofa. "I won't be long."


	30. Chapter 29 - Part Two

**_Author's Notes: Part Two! It seems as though this is what the majority of you have been looking forward to reading. I hope it doesn't disappoint. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Chapter 29 - Part Two<p>

As Hermione waited in the library for Malfoy's return, she explored more of his books. Various topics kept her mind occupied as the time stretched further and further into the night. By the time the clock reached ten o'clock, Hermione began to despise its presence in the room. An hour and a half had passed and Lucius still hadn't returned. Every time she glanced over her shoulder to check the clock, and saw that it had moved more than she wanted it to, she cursed inwardly. _'He said he wouldn't be long…quick in and quick out. Something's gone wrong.'_ The next thought to invade her peace of mind was her own safety. If something had gone wrong, if Lucius had been captured and was being held by the Order or the Ministry, would they send someone to his home to conduct a search? What would happen when they walked in and found her curled up on the sofa, alone, in the middle of the night?

Eleven came and went, and that damned clock wouldn't stop ticking away behind her. She was having trouble focusing on the book she was reading and soon decided to give up on reading all together. It had helped to keep her calm earlier on in the night, but now that midnight was quickly approaching and Lucius was no where to be found, the books surrounding her gave her little comfort. She hoped Mimbi would wander into the library at some point, if only to keep her company and settle her nerves, but Hermione knew that the house elf was most likely busy with her household duties, or sleeping. _'Would it really be so horrible to wake her?'_ Hermione thought selfishly before dismissing the idea all together. The young witch looked back at the clock and tried again to focus on a random book she selected from the many shelves. _'He'll be back in no time. I'm worrying for nothing.'_

The clock struck midnight and with a hesitant sigh, Hermione closed her book. _'Midnight…I said I would leave by midnight…but he's still not back. It shouldn't be taking this long. What if I go back to the Burrow and the Order's not there because they're stuck in a stand off with the V.R.S.?'_ Another set of thoughts gave her cause for worry and she found herself still sitting on the sofa, having not yet gotten up to leave the Manor. _'But Lucius said it was just a small group going tonight. If that were the case, then why is it taking him so long to come back?'_ With a stubborn crossing of her arms, Hermione decided to stay, if only for another ten more minutes. He would be back by then, surely.

Ten minutes passed quicker than she had expected and before realizing what she was doing, she had already convinced herself to stay for another ten. By 12:30, Hermione could sit still no longer. She needed to do something, but she couldn't contact the Order. How would she explain all of this? And worse even, how would she even begin to explain that she was only contacting them because she was worried about Lucius Malfoy of all people? _'No, if I'm going to act, I need to do this one my own.'_ Hermione got up from the sofa and walked over to the large desk. She started going through the drawers, pulling them out and sorting through the various papers they held. She was looking for maps, directions, anything that might help her find where exactly Lucius had gone. _'If I had been smarter, I would have asked him where he was going.'_ Hermione dug through the drawers, determined to find the location. _'But would he have even told me the truth if I asked? We're on opposite sides, enemies when it comes down to the thick of things. I'd be a fool to think he'd disregard my standing with the Order just because I asked a simple question.'_

As the papers from the drawers began to litter the desk's surface, cluttering the previously neat and tidy space, Hermione heard a loud pop and a crash. She rounded the desk as Malfoy apparated back into the library, landing roughly on the hard floor. She could hear him groaning in pain from the floor before she even approached him, kneeling down beside him to assess the damage.

His right arm was covered in blood and although the sleeve of his robe was torn up by the shoulder, she couldn't tell through the mess of everything where exactly the blood was coming from. _'What if it's not his?'_ Hermione thought quickly before pushing the disturbing thought from her mind. Placing her hand down on his shoulder, she put pressure on the potential wound to control the bleeding, earning her a loud, frustrated groan of pain from her injured patient. "Sorry! Sorry!" She hurriedly apologized and drew her hands back quickly.

Running back to the desk, Hermione grabbed her wand from where she had left it while riffling through the drawers, and returned back to kneel beside Lucius. He had gone still, quiet, and although his lips were parted loosely, his chest didn't seem to be rising and falling as heavily as she would have liked. "No, no, no…" Hermione quickly exclaimed, bringing her head down to his chest to check for a sign of life. It was still there, only weaker than it should have been.

As her ear rested against his chest, her hair fell down by the sides of his face. Lapsing in and out of consciousness, Lucius could feel the long strands of her thick chocolate locks brushing against his cheeks, getting caught up in his thin layer of stubble. Though his senses were proving to be unreliable in every sense of the word, the blonde wizard could have sworn he could smell her. In his conscious moments, his vision had become too foggy for him to decipher whether he was dreaming of her being there with him, or if she was truly there, caring for him with all of her might. He inhaled again weakly, taking in more of her scent if only to prove to himself that he wasn't imagining her presence.

Hermione listened to his chest again, catching the sound of air rushing into his lungs as he breathed in beneath her. "Yes, yes! Come on!" She straightened up and lifted her wand over his chest, slowly dragging it across his sternum and down the bloodied shoulder. "Come on, work. Please, work!" Hermione pled under her breath as she tried to focus on the healing spells coming from the wand hovering inches over his motionless form. The torn cloth of his robe was rough and starting to stiffen from the layer of blood it had already absorbed. Hermione dropped her wand quickly, using both of her hands to pull the soiled robe away from his body as gently as she could.

The fabric pulled away from the open wound, and Lucius groaned painfully as the air stung at the fresh injury. Hermione stopped, hesitating in her actions with the torn robe's sleeve still in her hand, and looked back up at Malfoy's face. He was unconscious, but the pain must have still been tormenting him. She would have to work quickly. As the cloth was pulled away, Hermione saw a clear, deep slash torn down the side of his bicep. It was still bleeding heavily, having cut through the muscle and flesh like a sharpened blade through butter. She focused her wand on the wound, trying to heal it before he lost any more blood. There was no doubt how much he'd already lost and with the option of going to the hospital completely out of the question, Hermione knew that she needed to get it under control as soon as possible.

Her wand lingered over him, shaking, and as the first five minutes of continuous healing charms passed, then ten, and soon the twenty minute mark was hit, her back began to stiffen and tighten from kneeling over him for so long. Her arms felt heavy, weak from not resting them, but she had to keep going. He'd improved. He was out of the immediate danger zone, but if his body didn't take to the treatment properly, he could just as easily slip back into that dreadful zone. Hermione grit her teeth and continued healing the man meant to be her enemy.

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><p>The clock struck one and although she had done all that she could to close the wounds and try to sterilize them so that they could heal properly, his clothes were still covered in deep crimson stains. Even the floor was spotted where he laid and Hermione let out a soft sigh. The worst was over and she had done all that she could. Now all that was left was to wait. He would wake up eventually, once the pain lessened and the wound had healed enough. Hermione got up from her spot on the floor and left the room quickly before returning a few minutes later with a washcloth from a nearby washroom and a bit of water in a bowl. It was the best she could do without rummaging through the entire Manor so late at night.<p>

Using her wand, she cut away the rest of his soiled shirt and discarded it to the side. His chest was littered with small, superficial nicks and wounds from spells that had grazed past him or just barely gotten past his shields. Hermione's eyes drifted past them and fell back on his shoulder. Dipping the washcloth into the water, she squeezed the excess out before carefully draping it over the now-closed, still-healing wound. _'It'll look better once it's clean…it just looks worse than it actually is._' She told herself as she lifted the washcloth and dipped it back into the water and repeated the gentle cleaning motions. _'If that were the case, then why is he still unconscious?'_ The morbid thought couldn't escape her and as she moved on to clean the light wounds on his chest and abdomen, she insisted that he was looking better already, if only for her own comfort of mind.

Exhausted and having done all that she could to heal him, Hermione dropped the cloth back into the bowl of now-reddish water and rolled off of her kneels onto her bottom on the floor. Her back hit the side of the desk and she welcomed the stiff support it offered, leaning back against it as she closed her eyes and waited for him to wake up. If it had been an entirely different situation, she would have used this time to notify someone. _'Draco, perhaps?'_ She thought, but she knew that she would have no way to explain her being there in the first place. Not to mention, Draco had assumed during the attack on Azkaban that she had died. She laughed silly in her exhausted state and wondered how his face would look when he learns that she survived after all. _'Little ferret…'_ She thought, amused.

As she sat against the smooth surface of the desk, Hermione heard a noise coming from a few paces away. Lucius had taken in a deep, shaky breath and as he exhaled back out, a cough was caught in his throat. His eyes remained closed as the cough involuntarily sputtered out of his lungs and up through his lips. Hermione slid back over to his side, resting on her knees as she lowered her head back down to his chest to listen to his vitals. His breathing had strengthened but it still didn't sound as promising as she had hoped. His heart beat on the other hand had nearly recovered to its full potential. Now that the gaping wound on his bicep had been sealed, the blood loss had been stopped and his pulse benefited greatly from her quick actions. She smiled as she pressed her ear against the chilled skin of his upper torso.

The smell of her hair and the feel of her flushed cheek resting on his chest just above his heart was stirring him. As he began to slip back into consciousness, he couldn't place whether or not this was a dream. Was she still even there? Though his sense of time had been sorely twisted into an unreadable ability by this time, he could feel that the tenderness in his body and the weakness over his tired muscles was the result of hours of pain and discomfort lying stiffly on the hard floor. If it weren't for the sweet smell of her and the feeling of her so near to him, he doubted whether he would have woken up when he did.

His eyes flickered open as he took in another deep breath, this time managing to swallow it down without him coughing it back up midway. Hermione felt him stir, heard him breathe beneath her, and pulled herself back up off of his chest. Before she could straighten up completely, his hand caught her wrist. If his throat wasn't so hoarse, he would have called out to her, asked her not to leave his side. He would have told her that she smelled of roses and fresh air, fields of flowers after a long spring rain. _'But would she laugh?'_ He wondered. _'Would she think me to be a fool and claw away from me?'_ With his hand on her wrist and her eyes staring down into his, Lucius released all of his doubt and banished the idea of speech entirely. His hand slipped off of her wrist and moved down instead to her hand as he lifted himself up off the ground to close the distance between them.

With an unexpected lift of his head, Lucius felt his lips brush against the delicately smooth feel of hers. An innocently gentle gesture, as it seemed while they both remained still, interlocked them only by the single point of brief impact, a kiss. The intimate motion caught Hermione by surprise and out of pure instinct, she pulled back and stared into his eyes, searching. But for what? _'Regret? Doubt? Or Sincerity and desire?'_ Lucius wondered as he felt her examining his eyes. They were whole and they were true, though as he stared back at her and felt her hand still held tightly in his, he wanted nothing more than to kiss her again.

Lucius let go of her hand and reached up to caress the curve of her cheek, drawing her back down to him as he hoped she would. She followed, lowering her head back down just as he lifted his further up to meet her again. They were closer this time, deeper, and as his hand stayed on her, lingering delicately against the sensitive skin of her neck and face, her hand reached up to cup the side of his face, holding him to her. Her fingers slipped down against him and settled comfortably at the base of his strong jaw line, her fingertips gently tickling just behind his earlobe. As if lit by a spark, Lucius lifted himself up closer to her, kissing her harder and toying with her lips seductively in an effort to break past them.

Just as her lips began to part, allowing him entrance, she pulled back. They broke briefly and as if rattled by their unplanned encounter, Hermione breathed out a shaking breath. Lucius smirked at her response, more than satisfied with his ability to leave her breathless. Seeing his grin, Hermione leaned back down to capture him again, only to pull away in the last seconds. The satisfied smirk on her face was playfully shining down at him as he exhaled sharply, frustrated that she had denied him, teasing him. She too, could enjoy the knowledge of her effect on him.

He took the final leap, shifting upright completely to sit up beside her, recapturing her mouth with his as he moved forward. With their embrace rekindled so quickly, Lucius asserted himself against her, switching their positions smoothly as his movements caused her to lean backwards until she felt her back touching the floor. The blonde wizard followed her down until he was on top of her. His hands ran down her body expertly, pausing only to rest comfortably in the curve of her hips, as if they were made to fit perfectly against the dips of her frame. Their kiss broke again, this time only as Lucius dropped his head down below her chin, forcing her to rise it upwards, giving him full access to her neckline. The kisses continued as his lips trailed down her body, tickling against the delicate crook just above her shoulder. His short little shadow of stubble prickled at her flesh and Hermione leaned into him, loving the way his mouth felt against her bare flesh.

Still, she was holding back, if only slightly. He could feel her body softening beneath him, wanting everything he eagerly hoped to give her, but her body still felt tenser than it should have been, as if she was afraid to let things fully unfold. "Lucius," she breathed out, her eyes closed and her neck elongated to assist in deepening his contact. He hummed against her skin tenderly, as if to question her wordlessly, and she repeated, just as softly as before, "Lucius…"

Malfoy groaned greedily, seductively against her neck, and drew himself further down to the crest of her bosom. His mouth lingered for a moment to sprinkle her skin with kisses and tender affections, before he returned back up to her lips. "You smell so sweet," he mumbled to her hungrily between kisses.

His words and the way that his voice still retained a slight elegance even through his coarse, desire-filled tone made her want to forget it all. Forget their allegiances, their pasts, just to let herself open up to him fully. Her lips found his again, deeper, as his hand returned back to her face to affectionately brush against her cheek and disappear into her unruly hair. But as she tried to relax again and just let things unfold, her overly careful tenderness with him distracted her. She knew even with her healing spells, he must have still been exhausted from the fighting, if only so alert and excited now because of the adrenaline pumping through them both. She tried again, this time getting her words out completely. "Lucius….your shoulder."

Lucius groaned in frustration, leaving her lips to nip just below her earlobe. "Fuck the shoulder," he replied roughly, bringing his mouth away from her ear to kiss her again. "I've wanted you too long to stop now because of a little paper cut." His brows lifted as he smiled down at her.

Hermione smiled playfully at his words and reached up to pull him back down towards her. "Good." She admitted, blushing before the words even left her lips. "I'd hate for you to stop now."

"Hmm?" Lucius questioned seductively. "And why is that, Miss Granger?" He played with her bottom lip, dragging it into a frisky kiss before letting it loose to nip again at her neck.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she felt his tongue pressing against the pale skin of her neck, urging it to turn pink underneath the heat of his mouth. As much as she didn't want it to stop, she craved his attentions elsewhere, lower. His shirt had already been removed when she cleaned up his wounds but his trousers—those bothersome, obstructing trousers were still keeping them separated. Her hands slipped down between their bodies and rested against the buckle of his belt. She heard him growl beside her ear as she pulled the belt through the buckle and loosened it from his waist. "Impatient little thing, aren't you?" Hermione heard him purr at her playfully. "And to think, I thought most witches enjoyed foreplay more than the actual act."

Hermione laughed softly and looked up at him. "Most witches? And tell me, Lucius, just how many witches have you had during this _research_ of yours?"

He laughed as well, working at the buttons of her blouse as he answered. "None that I care to remember right now." In his haste, Lucius missed a button, causing the blouse to remain closed towards the bottom. "Bloody buttons…" He grumbled under his breath and reached over towards his robe lying on the floor beside them for his wand. Hermione tried to stifle back another laugh at his easily triggered frustration.

With the wand in hand, his movements were much smoother, well-developed, and as the final button of her blouse came undone and the shirt itself along with her brassiere vanished from her body, her hands worked quicker on his trousers. She unfastened them and found his hardened member with her hands. His mouth seized hers and with another leisure grazing of his wand down between them, her bottom half had become equally as bare as her top.

She expected him to discard the wand, toss it aside, or perhaps throw it back towards his robes for the duration of their canoodling, but when he kept the wand in his hand after its purpose had been fulfilled, Hermione felt a wave of nerves wash over her. "What are you doing?" She asked as he broke the kiss and moved down towards her chest, the wand still in hand.

He paused, his lips hovering over an already rising nipple. "I thought that was pretty obvious by now." He answered with a chuckle before taking a more serious tone. "Why? I thought…" His eyes met hers and she could see the sudden concern in them. "I'm sorry, did you not want to…?" His words trailed off as he tried to sort out what he was trying to say. "I must have misread your intentions."

The doubt, as embarrassing of a feeling as it was, began to show on his face as he awkwardly tried to create as much distance as he could between them without completely getting up onto his knees above her. "No, no!" Hermione explained, trying to catch him before he stood or removed himself from her space entirely. "I just meant the wand." Her eyes flickered down to his wand as she nodded towards it.

Lucius looked down at his wand as well, at first puzzled, before he realized what had gotten her so confused. He smirked devilishly and snaked the wand up her torso, dragging the tip up her belly before making contact with her right nipple. It startled her, though only by surprise. Part of her expected pain, as if the only way a death eater could make love was through pain and violent kinks. When she felt the wand touch her nipple, there were no sparks, no pinches or aches. Instead, as Lucius withdrew his wand, she felt goose bumps trembling over the surrounding skin, making the nipple stand erect quicker and harder than the one on her left. As he watched her, waiting for her to realize what he had done, Lucius dipped his head down and brought his mouth down on the overly sensitized bud. His lips grazed over the tight areola while his tongue worked its way around the hardened nipple's peak. It sent a shiver down her body, spreading through her chest and traveling down to her limbs. Her head dropped back against the floor as she closed her eyes and lifted her chest closer towards his hungry mouth. His lips parted and with a final flick of his tongue over the goose bumped areola, he lifted his head back up from her breast. A gratified grin played across his face when he saw her. "Have you never thought to use magic?"

"Not like that, no." Hermione answered honestly, her breath slightly labored as the air felt cooler now, brushing over her exposed, moistened breast. "My experiences up until now have always tended to be a bit more primal in nature."

"What a shame," Lucius taunted, pouting as he stared down at the other nipple. He brought the wand closer to it and gave it the same intricate treatment as the first. As his mouth reached her flesh and his tongue began to roll over her tender teat, Hermione couldn't hold herself back this time. With his face buried against her full breast, he heard her moan softly underneath him. It vibrated gently through her chest but it was her fiery tone that made his lips curl into another satisfied smirk. He lifted his head and watched as the skin of her nipple tightened and stood stiff just like the first one had done. "Everyone knows that a man can only have as much pleasure as he's willing to give to his partner."

Hermione's eyes crinkled at the corners as a wicked thought brought a smile to her face. Her voice lowered while her eyes played at him lustfully. "And how much are you planning on giving me?"

"For you?" Lucius asked teasingly and pauses to think it over. Shifting onto the support of his forearms, the tall wizard left her chest in favor of her neck. He dropped his head down beside hers and brushed his lips over the womanly curve just above her collarbone, tenderly kissing and lingering over her skin. As his lips slowly made their way along her neckline to her ear, he pulled away briefly. The tickle of his breath hovered above her ear and he whispered seductively, "Everything."

With a careful caress of his wand's tip over the folds of her womanhood, Lucius performed the same charm he had done with her breasts and finally discarded the wand to the side. Making quick work of the job Hermione had started with his trousers, his stiff lower half became just as exposed as she was. Her legs lifted and brushed against his sides as Lucius positioned himself between them. As the charm began to take affect and Hermione felt her lower lips begin to plump and her core moisten more than they normally would, she reached for his kiss again, pulling him back down onto the floor with her. Her arms draped over his broad shoulders as her hands dangled loosely behind his head, combing lazily through his long platinum hair. She felt him shift, pushing his torso closer to hers and the rest of him followed. His waist ground against her and she felt him enter her. The spell had made her better prepared, slicker, but somehow Hermione doubted the spell had truly ever been needed, what with the way his hard body lingered over her and his long blonde locks tickled at her nipples every time he moved against her. However the perk of oversensitivity among her womanly bits was proving to be more desirable than she originally thought it would be. Every time she felt him dip further inside her, the friction along her lower lips sent waves of pleasure straight to her core.

A low growl rumbled up through his chest and throat as he started to move faster inside her. Hermione felt herself tighten around him, adjusting to his size as best as she could and knew that no matter how big he had been, she would somehow accommodate all of him. His lips dropped away from hers as their breathing quickened, matched with his pace. He could hear her moaning beside his ear and it only drove him further into their lust filled exchange.

With his body supported above her, his injured shoulder tightened uncomfortably under his own weight. With no more than a single pause in their rhythm, Lucius rolled over onto his side, taking her with him, and flattened out on his back against the floor. His hands traveled down to her hips as she straddled him, guiding her movements until they fell back into a synchronized collection of thrusts and grinds.

The spell Lucius had placed came to its full potential as she rode on top of him and felt his pelvis brushing against her overly sensitized clit. The stimulation on her tiny bundle of nerves threw her sensations into overdrive while his movements beneath her were driving them both to completion. He felt her tighten around him, the insides of her thighs quivering uncontrollably as she tried to keep herself upright. But it was too much. She felt herself growing more and more aroused, needing her release. Falling forward, the young witch pressed her hands against the firm muscles of his chest and rode out the last of his thrusts as the sensation between her thighs climaxed.

The man beneath her, inside of her, lasted only a few seconds longer, bringing himself to completion as the sweet smell of her hair mixed with the scent of her arousal and filled the room the feel. Her soft body melted against him and as her head rested against his chest, her hand found his, loosely intertwining her fingers into his.

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><p><strong><em>ANs: <strong><em>I was a bit nervous uploading this, since believe it or not, the sex part was what I found to be most difficult to write. But hopefully it wasn't a complete mess.<em>**  
><em>**

**_**_Let me know what you think in the reviews or PMs, or through tumblr. Whichever you prefer. I'm curious to see whether this lived up to the expectations that I know a few people may have had, or if it came up a bit short. Either way, let me know! I love reading all of your reviews and feedback! And as always, thank you for reading and for your continued support. It makes me smile :)_**_**

**_**_Chapter 30 coming soon!_**_**


	31. Chapter 30

**_Author's Notes: First and foremost, thank you for all the reviews that this story had received so far. I love reading them and it's really a joy to hear your reactions to certain chapters/events. Hopefully the rest of the story doesn't disappoint :) With that being said, it's always hard to follow up a chapter like 29, isn't it? Well, let's see how this goes. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Chapter 30<p>

The morning came sooner than she expected and as Hermione began to stir against the soft, smooth bed sheets, her eyes fluttered open to see where she was. Surely Lucius didn't drag bed sheets into the library in the middle of the early morning after their… _'Ugh…what did I do?'_ Hermione groaned against the pillow as the memory of last night hit her like a ton of bricks. She had enjoyed it, there was no doubt about that, but out of all the people in the world, why did it have to happen with Lucius Malfoy? She pinched her eyes closed and tried to fall back asleep. Maybe if she managed to go back to sleep, she would wake up for real and discover this was all just some very strange dream.

The sound of a door clicking open and then shutting closed made it impossible for her to stay in bed, trying to pretend to sleep when her mind was already wide awake. Her eyes opened again, this time staying open long enough to get a decent look at the room around her. The bed sheets of the massive king sized bed were cool silver in color and Hermione had to stifle back a snort of laughter. _'Of course he would have silver sheets…I'm surprised he doesn't have matching green pillow cases with little snakes stitched along the edges.'_ The Gryffindor witch sat up in the bed and rubbed a bit of crust from the corner of her eye. That was when she spotted it. On the floor, just in front of the bed, was a large green floor rug with silver stitching. All that was missing were the ridiculous little snakes she had imagined. Amused, she crawled over to the bottom of the long bed, dragging part of the bed sheets with her to cover her lower half from the morning chill in the air, and examined the silver stitching just to make sure little snakes hadn't somehow found their way into the intricate design.

"Ah, good, you're awake." Lucius's voice called to her from across the enormous bedroom suite. Hermione's head lifted immediately. He was standing in the doorway, leaning against it's frame as he watched her down at the base of the bed.

"Did you ever think of knocking first?" Hermione questioned sharply, pulling as much of the sheets over her bare form as she could.

With a few disbelieving blinks and a significant raise of one of his eyebrows, the arrogant wizard replied. "No. It's my room."

Hermione rolled her eyes at his superior attitude. It was too early in the day to listen to his cocky remarks. "Well in my defense, we didn't start here. We started in the library."

Lucius frowned in mock confusion before answering shortly, "Also mine." His tone was childish, despite his voice still holding the traditional Malfoy aristocratic flair.

She groaned again and reached her hand under the bed covers, searching for something to pull over her upper half at least. "Ugh, where are all my-,"

"In the bedside table, bottom shelf." Malfoy aided as he walked over to a far corner of the room, turning his back to the bed while she began to dress. As ridiculous as her modesty was, considering how very much of her he had seen last night, he was still a proper gentleman and she, despite her current state, was still a lady to be respected. "There's food." Lucius added, raising the volume of his voice as he spoke, still facing the corner, toying with a few of the various objects that were on display against the walls.

"Good. I'm starving! I haven't eaten since yesterday morning." Hermione replied enthusiastically from beside the bed while she quickly dressed.

Malfoy's brows creased downwards together as her statement sank in. He turned his head to the side in an attempt to make his voice reach her more easily, and probed, "I thought you said you ate yesterday, just before you came here."

A few uncomfortable seconds of silence filled the room before Hermione confessed. "I lied."

"Hmm," Lucius responded, turning his face back towards the corner stiffly. "Well, that's off-putting."

Hermione had finished slipping on her clothes and found the food he had mentioned placed neatly on a tray sitting on a small table towards the left hand side of the room. He heard her pull out one of the chairs to sit down and followed. There were toast and eggs, an assortment of plump fruits cut into little bite-sized pieces, and glasses for both juice and tea. Hermione started loading up her plate when she saw him sit down with her. "Sorry I lied, but I wasn't exactly fond of you when you dragged me here yesterday." She explained half-heartedly. If anyone had told her then, when he brought her to the Manor the evening before, that they would end up in his bedroom together the following morning, she would have laughed in their face. She took a bite of the toast hungrily.

"I see," Malfoy spoke as he examined the bowl of fruit and began picking out specific pieces that he wanted. He glanced at her, still processing her explanation, and asked, "And now?" Surely she couldn't still be angry with him because of what he said over a week ago. Then again, with a fiery witch like her, there was no telling how long she could hold a grudge.

She mulled over his question as she chewed at her mouthful of toast before finally answering playfully with a shrug, "You're growing on me." The silence returned between them, aside from her chewing and his sips at his tea, and one thought pricked at her uncomfortably. She would have to think of another lie to tell the Weasleys once she returned to their home. As dreadful of a task as it was, she really did hate lying to them, but telling the truth about last night would be completely out of the question. Hermione took one last bite of her toast and drank her juice, glancing awkwardly at Lucius while he did the same with his own breakfast. "I'll have to be going soon. I can't stay."

As if in silent agreement, Lucius nodded and took one more bite of his fruit. He swallowed and began to ask, "Would you like me to escort you back to…" But his words trailed off as he wondered whether she would be going back to the burrow or somewhere else. _'Where else would she go, you fool? Just because you've bedded her, you think she'll suddenly stop living with the group of freckle-faced, ginger idiots? Don't be so naive.'_

Their thoughts seemed to merge in that moment and Hermione offered an apologetic smile. "You know that's not possible."

Lucius shook his head in confirmation and admitted with uncertainty in his words, "I know…I'm not entirely sure how to proceed from here. It's been a while since I've done something like this. It was-,"

"A mistake?" Hermione asked suddenly.

His eyes darted over to hers, uncomfortable with her suggestion. "I was going to say _unexpected_." He corrected her and her cheeks flushed to deep pink. Her mouth was always getting her into trouble, even while at Hogwarts, and now seemed to be no different. Lucius took one final sip of his tea and stood from the small table. Surely with her last remark, the extent of their awkward morning interactions had been brought to a peak. He had done the proper duties as host in their current situation. He had checked in with her after their night together and offered her comforting food when she woke. In his mind, his presence had been seen, noted, and was now no longer needed. "I'll have my house elf see you off then, if there's nothing else you require." With a short, stiff tilt of his head towards her, he turned to walk to the door.

Hermione rose from her seat, the chair screeching as it dragged back against the hard stone flooring. "I can see myself off, thanks." She replied sternly. Though she would never admit it, his overly formal tone with her had hurt. No doubt he felt just as bothered by her lack of affection towards him after their late night tussle, but what had he expected from the young witch? Their situation wouldn't allow him to properly court her and he knew that even if he could, why would he fool himself into thinking this beautiful, intelligent witch would allow it? The tall wizard watched as she paced back towards the bed and grabbed her wand up off the small side table. She tucked it into her back pocket and brushed past him out of the room. He could still smell the sweet scent of her hair after she left.

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><p>Her heart raced as she took the few quick paces up the steps to the Weasley's front door. She could hear them inside and knew that the house was as busy as ever. The wedding was in less than a week and with the attack on the muggle community just last night, she was sure that was still fresh on everyone's minds. With a twist of the knob and one final deep breath, Hermione walked into the tiny house.<p>

"'Mione!" Ron spotted her first. "Where have you been?" His voice was concerned as he hurried over to the doorway to hug her. Ginny and Harry were in the room as well and stood to watch the exchange, smiling their relief at the sight of her.

She hugged him back briefly and began with her story. "I went to see my parents. Why? What's happened?"

Ron let go of her, dropping his hand down the length of her arm and settling his fingers in her palm warmly. Harry explained as quickly as he could. "There was another attack last night. When we didn't hear from you, we were concerned that something had happened." Ginny nodded beside him and Hermione felt her stomach twist into a knot. There they were, her best friends, worried sick about her and where was she? _Consorting_ with the enemy. Hermione prayed that they couldn't smell him on her. His rich cologne and the musky smell of his skin was still clinging just as firmly to the inside of her nose as it was last night when she fell asleep in his arms. _'I should have bathed before I stormed out of there…'_

"An attack?" Hermione tried to sound as surprised as she could. "So soon after Azkaban? What kind of attack?" She questioned, loosening her hand from Ron's and going over to the couch to sit with Harry and Ginny.

"That's exactly what we were thinking. Ginny, Ron and I were just talking about it." Harry explained, taking his seat with Ginny back on the couch as Hermione sat down.

"Yeah, it doesn't make any sense for them to plan another attack so soon, right?" Ginny asked. "They're feeling threatened, boxed into a corner. That's why the attacks are becoming more and more frequent. It's the only explanation."

Hermione nodded, but in the private realms of her own thoughts, she knew they were wrong. Lucius had said the group was there for supplies. If they felt cornered, like Ginny had suggested, surely they would have brought more people, came better prepared, and aimed to cause havoc, not just replenish their supplies. The Order was wrong, but how could she tell them that without explaining how she knew. "How many were there?" She asked, changing the topic as she thought of how best to respond to their assumption.

Harry shrugged and looked at Ginny for guidance. She looked at Ron, who glanced back at Harry. "Four, maybe." He offered with uncertainty.

"No, there were five. Remember that one that came in midway?" Ginny corrected him.

Both boys nodded. "Yeah, you're right." Ron agreed. "There were five."

Hermione swallowed hard. When Lucius said it was a small group, he wasn't exaggerating. What could they have possibly been thinking by sending only five of them? They must have underestimated the Order's ability to track them down so quickly. "And how many of us?" She asked.

"Everyone." Harry replied immediately before correcting himself. "Well, everyone available. Us," He motioned around at the three of them, obviously excluding Hermione. "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, George would have come too but he had gone out to London with Bill and Fleur when we got the notice about the attack and we didn't have time to get them back here."

"So it was five on five then?" She asked, quickly adding up the number of people Harry mentioned in her head.

Ginny chimed in. "No, there were those three Aurors from the ministry, remember? They met us there." She told Harry.

"Oh, right." He remembered. "So eight of us then." Ginny nodded along with Ron and looked back at Hermione.

Hermione thought of the amount of blood that soaked through Malfoy's clothes when he finally returned to the Manor the night before. It was a miracle he made it back at all, his side being so badly outnumbered. Had they suffered causalities? She cursed inwardly. _'Another topic I should have brought up before leaving this morning…'_

"It was really chaotic, 'Mione. By the time we got there, we must have caught them by surprise. I'm surprised they didn't flee right from the start." Ron added.

"And those that didn't flee…" Hermione started, trying to think of how to phrase her question without sounding so concerned for the wrong side. "Did we…_get_ any of them?"

Ron grinned, full of pride. "I nailed one right in the arm before he could get away. It looked pretty bad." Hermione tried not to show her reaction on her face, but her mind wasn't so quiet. _'It __**was**__ bad! You nearly killed him!'_ She took another quick breath to calm herself and silently gave Ron a congratulatory smile.

"We got one." Harry answered. "In custody." He added. "Amycus Carrow."

Ron laughed hardily. "His sicko sister, Alecto was one of the ones to get away during the attack on Azkaban. Now we've got her brother! Seems like an even exchange!"

Hermione's eyes darted from Harry to Ron as he laughed. Ignoring her urge to scold him for joking about something so serious as war, she focused back on Harry. "Has he said anything? Given us any information we can work with?"

"Kingley's with him now, at the ministry. They've been at it all night. He's got to be wearing down by now. He'll talk." Harry said confidently. "And if he doesn't, there's always Veritaserum."

_ 'Carrow…'_ Hermione thought. _'He was there, at the Manor the night Malfoy joined them. He __**saw**__ me there, shot at me with his wand. If the ministry has him, what has he told them already?'_ She tried to remember exactly what day that was that he had seen her. Was that before or after she told Ginny that she was through with Malfoy? She held out hope that it was before. At least then, she could explain her presence at the Manor a bit easier than if she were caught there after cutting things off with him. She tried to keep her voice as calm and level as she could. She needed more information. "You mean, you haven't used it already?"

Harry shook his head and Hermione felt a wave of relief spread through her. For the time being, unless Carrow decided to use her presence at the manor as a bargaining chip, she was safe. She assumed Malfoy's allegiance with the V.R.S. also kept his name safe from Carrow's lips if he decided to cooperate with the Ministry. "Have you seen him?" Ron asked sarcastically. "He's bat shit crazy, just like the whole lot of them. Even if we did use the truth serum on him, I doubt anything he says would hold up during trial."

"That doesn't mean we can't use it to at least get information out of him." Ginny responded. "At this point, we can use as much information as we can get our hands on."

Hermione nodded quietly before a thought came to her. "You said Kingley is with him?"

"Yeah, they're at the ministry before we transfer him over to Azkaban." Harry confirmed, wondering where she was going with it.

She smiled wide and lowered her voice, dragging them in closer as she spoke. "I've got a plan."

* * *

><p>The ministry was busy with workers going in all sorts of different directions, carrying papers and talking amongst themselves about tasks that needed completing, but from the privacy of Harry's office, they were hidden away from any prying eyes. His office was a mess of papers and files, stacked sky high on his desk and piling over to the floor beside his chair. "I can't believe you get any work done in here." Hermione commented, motioning towards the overflowing amount of papers taking over the desk.<p>

Harry shrugged much like he did years back in Hogwarts when she questioned him and Ron about whether or not their homework assignments had been done. "I've asked for all of our files on the death eaters to be brought in here so I could look them over and try to figure out who's transitioned over to the V.R.S. I guess I underestimated it a little."

Hermione eyed the files and wondered if they included _all_ of the death eaters. If so, that meant there would be a file somewhere in that mess specifically for Lucius. She casually took a step towards the desk and idly thumbed over the file's tabs, looking for a _**'Malfoy, L.'**_ but the files were turned all sorts of different ways and some weren't even properly labeled. No wonder Harry wasn't enthusiastic about going through them, as disorganized as everything seemed. "Any luck yet?" She asked smoothly.

He shook his head with a scowl. "Not yet. Some of the files, they're so thorough…it takes forever just to get through one and the things that are written in there, details of their crimes…" He paused and shook his head again. "It's really gruesome stuff. I promised myself that I wouldn't take any of them home with me. I don't want Ginny reading any of that garbage."

Hermione pulled her hand away from the pile of papers and agreed with a nod. _'Perhaps taking a peek into Malfoy's file isn't such a good idea after all.'_ She stepped away from the desk and pulled a flask from her pocket, flipping open the lid. "You're sure this is her hair?" Hermione asked as Harry pulled out a small vial containing a single dark brown hair. Having had a sour experience with mixed up hairs in a past polyjuice potion, Hermione was visibly hesitant.

Harry nodded and uncorked the stopper at the top of the vial. "Positive. It's part of the new protocol for every Azkaban inmate that goes through processing, to keep better tabs on them." Hermione stared down at the hair. The ministry already stripped any inmates of their wands, tattooed their prisoner numbers on their neck, and nearly drove them all insane by placing them in Azkaban. Taking a bit of their hair didn't seem as intrusive when compared to what they already went through during processing.

Carefully, Hermione took the vial containing the hair from Harry and tilted it into the flask in her other hand. "I still don't understand why it's got to be you going in there." Harry stated his doubts. "I could get in, take the potion, then go into the interrogation room."

Hermione shook her head, keeping her eyes on the potion as the hair began to dissolve into the disgusting, dark liquid. "If you take the potion and try to get in as her, you'll be carted away to Azkaban as soon as someone spots you. But if you take it too late and it doesn't wear off before you leave the room, someone will see you in there with him for sure, as her, and you'll end up caught anyway. It **has** to be me, Harry. Besides, you need to sneak me in and keep an eye out for Kingsley while I'm in there. It's a two person job. Now, do you have the cloak?"

He lifted his work briefcase up and flipped open the clasps that held it shut. It popped open and he pulled out the cloak. It was the invisibility cloak they had used through out all their years at Hogwarts. Harry closed his briefcase and shook out the cloak until it hung at full length. As children, they used to be able to fit all three of them- Harry, Ron, and Hermione, underneath the magical cloak, but now, it would only conceal one of them. "Well, bottoms up." Hermione said, trying to hide the nerves that she was feeling from showing in her voice.

"Good luck, Hermione." Harry said, giving his friend a reassuring smile. He had always been good at keeping spirits high, and if this plan was supposed to work, they were going to need plenty of confidence. The potion tasted vile and as Hermione began to feel its effects, she ran into Harry's small lavatory, clutching her stomach. She felt like she was going to be sick and in a way, the potion was making her ill. She could feel her skin crawling, bloating up and reshaping itself horribly fast. She chucked into the toilet and when she straightened herself back up, she caught her image in the mirror. "This is hideous, Harry."

"Well come on then. Let's have a look." He encouraged from outside the door.

She had already started to change clothes, stripping off her usual shirt and pants, and instead slipped on the spare set of Azakban prisoner robes that Harry had managed to get a hold of. "Just about done." Hermione called out to him through the door. She pulled the shirt over her head and opened the door. "Well? Say something Harry." She urged him, already feeling increasingly uncomfortable in a different set of skin, especially with the way he was looking at her.

"Wow, you do look hideous." He said, flashing a cheeky grin before Hermione could swat at him playfully. "Okay, okay!" He laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. "You don't look **that** bad."

"Well, I look like her and that's the point." Hermione said and Harry frowned. "What? What is it?" She asked.

"It's just that you don't sound like her. You've got to lower your voice a bit." He guided and Hermione gave it a shot, lowering her voice down a few notes until she was convinced she sounded spot on. Harry looked her over and gave her a satisfied nod. "I think you'll pass."

"I **need** to pass. If this doesn't work and he can tell I'm not her, I won't get anything useful out of him." Hermione was nervous. She had one shot and if she blew it, they wouldn't get another chance. Harry and Ron had pulled off being Malfoy's best friends when they used polyjuice potion, and they were only kids. Surely she could do just as good a job, if not better. After all, before the war had ended years ago, she assumed the identity of one of the darkest witches of her time, Bellatrix Lestrange, and if it hadn't been for the increased security at Gringotts bank, Hermione was convinced she would have fooled them completely. She needed to do even better this time around and with Harry by her side, she was determined to make this plan work.

* * *

><p>With Hermione tucked safely away beneath the invisibility cloak, she and Harry went down to the interrogation room. As expected, Kingsley was still at it, sitting in the room across from a long table with the crazed death eater shackled firmly in place. If Kingsley was sore from the hours of constant interrogation, then Carrow must have been a crumbled mess from his restricted range of movement. Slipping into the observation room quietly, Harry and Hermione approached the door that separated the two rooms and peered through the window. Carrow was the first to spot Harry, as Kingsley had his back to the door, and sneered. Kingsley, curious as to what had gotten such a reaction from the old death eater, looked over his shoulder and offered Harry a relieved smile. He turned back to Carrow and spoke briefly before exiting the room. "Harry!" The minister of magic greeted him, shaking his hand firmly despite his exhausted state.<p>

"Good morning, Minister. Any progress?" Harry asked, flicking his eyes suggestively towards the door.

Kingsley shook his head disappointedly. "All he keeps saying is how we're all going to be sorry. That we're going to regret we didn't surrender. Rubbish like that."

Harry nodded, agreeing. It was rubbish. Voldemort had been defeated and now the V.R.S. would be squashed just the same. That was the order of things and no matter how the situation seemed, Harry was convinced they would always come out on top. Hermione silently watched from beneath the safety of Harry's old cloak as the two wizards conversed. "It's nearly lunch time, Minister. Have you been here all morning?"

"Yes. Not much good it's done though. He does seem to be tiring down at least. He's not shouting as much anymore."

"That's a plus." Harry noted. "Why don't you grab something to eat? Recharge, you know? I'll babysit this idiot while you're gone."

"Are you sure? He's a handful if you listen to whatever filth he spits out of his mouth, but if you get too tired of him, there's a ward on the room that will block out any sound coming from inside. Then you can just stay in here and give him some time to calm down before I get back." Kingsley instructed. His voice lowered as his eyes dragged back tiredly to the room where Carrow sat. "That silencing ward is the only reason I haven't lost control and hexed him yet."

Harry looked into the room and saw the man trying to say something to him through the window, but the ward must have been in place because no words came through the door, no matter how loudly Carrow seemed to be shouting. "I'm sure it'll be fine, Minister. I can handle a little foul language." Harry grinned as if to remind the old Auror that he was in fact still talking to a young male in his 20s. No doubt his years in the boys dormitory had taught him every form of coarse language imaginable, if only to pass the time with his then-adolescent housemates.

Kingsley chuckled and gave him a short nod. "Right. I'm assuming you saw the set of workers standing outside the door before you came in here? They're there in case things get out of hand. He's shackled and has no wand. I'd ask that you don't take your wand inside, for safety precautions of course."

"Of course," Harry agreed.

"If you find that you need assistance of any kind, there's an element to the ward that will alert the men outside. Just clap your hands twice and that'll be enough to trigger the ward's alarm." The minister, with bags under his tired eyes, shook Harry's hand again and thanked him. "I won't be long. Half an hour, I imagine."

"Take your time. You need to rest." Harry assured him and when the Minister of Magic left the room, Harry breathed out a sigh of relief. "I thought he was on to us for a second there."

"Me too." Hermione remarked, yanking the cloak off of her. She became visible, or at least the polyjuiced version of her did, and Harry couldn't help but stare at her. "Will you stop it, Harry!" He looked away, staring instead into the interrogation room at Amycus Carrow. "Did you want to go over the plan one more time?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I got it. What if he reacts badly to seeing you? I mean, they do get along, right?"

"Yeah," Hermione confirmed. "They're both sick, twisted sadists, and think killing innocent people is good fun. How could they not get along?" Harry nodded and pulled out his wand. He was hesitant to leave it behind but with Kingsley's instructions still ringing clear in his head, he knew that if Carrow got a hold of it somehow, they would all be sorry. He lifted his briefcase and put it down on the table beside the door, dropping his wand inside. Hermione did the same with hers, just as reluctantly. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Sorry about this, Hermione." Harry said and withdrew a pair of shackles from his briefcase. He clicked them onto her wrists and then connected it to the chain he wrapped around her waist. With one final step, he locked her ankles in similar restrictions, connecting them all at her middle. "Is that alright?" He asked, shaking at the loose bits of chain that hung from her wrists.

"I don't know. Is this how they have it at Azkaban?" She asked.

Harry shrugged. "Yeah, more or less."

"Well which is it, Harry? It either is or it isn't." She shot at him unexpectedly. "If we're going to do this, it needs to be right or he won't believe it."

"Fine." Harry grabbed the restraints at her wrist again and tightened them, then did the same with the ones down around her ankles. "There." He said firmly. "Let's go. I don't want Kingsley coming back while we're still in there."

The door creaked as he opened it. He had retrieved one last item from his briefcase before entering the room, dragging Hermione along with him. The door clicked shut loudly and Hermione heard the ominous sizzle, followed by a soft, continuous humming as the wards and protective charms held strong around them. "Carrow." Harry greeted him coldly, yanking Hermione closer to him by the arm. She had a black hood over her head, but the Azkaban prisoner uniform she wore and the shackles at her writs, waist, and ankles were all too identifying for the detained death eater sitting in front of them.

"What's this? A private audience with the famous Harry Potter?" Carrow sneered. "To what do I owe this honor, your majesty?" He mocked, lifting his hand as far up as his own chains would allow and sarcastically tried to give Harry a salute. The chains wouldn't let him reach that sort of range of motion, so he settled for an under extended tipping of his imaginary hat.

"Oh, it's not me you should be excited to see. Haven't you been wondering who I've brought with me?" Harry asked suggestively, giving Hermione's arm another firm jerk as he forced her to sit down in the chair opposite Amycus.

"Why?" He asked. "Should I be?" He was playing coy. Harry could tell that he was curious who the hooded prisoner was as soon as his eyes darted towards her when they entered, and again now as she sat across from him. His eyes rolled over her form, lingering on the few exposed parts of her body. Her hands, her arms, the little bits of hair that poked out of the base of the hood by her shoulders. The recognition was slowly coming to him, but he wouldn't say the name. He refused to give Harry any more leverage than he already had.

"I don't know." Harry replied. "You tell me." He pulled off the hood quickly, revealing the prisoner hidden underneath.

Her hair was a mess, tossed from this side to that when the hood was removed. It covered her face and stuck to the corners of her mouth as she breathed, but Carrow recognized her all the same. "For fuck's sake, Alecto!" He cursed, turning his head away in disgust before snapping his eyes back to her. "Can you stay out of here for more than a few days? Is that really so hard?"

He was angry with her, frustrated, and although his voice hadn't risen to a full shout, it was much louder than Hermione expected. She felt her hands and legs begin to tremble as the realization of their close proximity finally set in. '_Thank goodness this table is here,_' she thought, trying not to show her fear. _'Quick, Hermione! Think! He's scolding you. Your _**brother**_is making a fool of you, and you're a death eater. What do you say? What do you do?'_ Hermione's mind raced before she felt her hands moving quicker than her brain. They slammed down on the table, striking it hard with the sides of her fists and before she knew what she was saying, the words were coming out of her mouth with a coarse, bitter tone that she could never claim to be her own, no matter how angry or crazed she became. "Look at your own bloody self, you prick!"

As if unfazed by the verbal harassment- perhaps he was used to such intimidating interactions, Amycus shook his head and questioned, "I **saw** you get away. I saw you apparate. All you had to do was stay fucking hidden! What happened?"

Hermione searched for some sort of answer and tried to lace it with as much vulgarity as she could. It felt odd enough being in Alecto Carrow's body but to sound as crude and as unrefined as the sick death eater seemed was an entirely different story. "The fuck if I know! I got away and then as soon as I touched ground, some bastard hit me from behind."

Amycus looked disappointed, angry even, but it was obvious enough that he understood and believed her story. Why wouldn't he? There she was, sitting right across the table from him dressed in prison garb and shackled all the same. He shook his head again angrily before looking past her at Harry with a snarl. "Mind if we get a moment to ourselves, golden boy?" It was only phrased in the form of a question because of their current circumstances. Hermione was positive that if Amycus weren't bound and restricted to his chair, his request would have been made entirely differently.

Harry laughed as if Carrow had made a joke. "What, and let you two plot together? Maybe plan a way for the both of you to break out of here? Yeah, I don't think so, Amycus. Nice try though."

_ 'That wasn't the plan,'_ Hermione thought bitterly. He needed to leave the room to keep an eye out for when Kingsley returned, but most importantly, so that Hermione could get some time alone with the death eater who had seen her at the manor. She needed to find out what Carrow knew, and she couldn't do that with Harry standing right behind her. She cursed loudly, uncharacteristic of her normal demeanor but for Alecto, it was nothing more than expected. "You little shit! You've already got us both locked up tighter than your dead mother's cunt! Do you really think we're going anywhere anytime soon?" She hated herself as soon as the words left her mouth and knew that Harry would remember them long after the polyjuice potion wore off. She wanted to apologize, to plead with him with her eyes just so that he could see how sincere she was, how she regretted bringing his mother into all of this mess, but if being cruel and hurtful was what a death eater like Alecto was capable of, then that was the role she was required to play while within this room.

Amycus chuckled madly from across the table, lifting his hands as best as he could despite the shackles and pointed at Harry. "Look at his face, Alecto! I think you'll make him cry! You goin' to cry, Potter?" Carrow mocked, drawing his hand back towards himself and rubbing at his eyes to mimic the cries of a child.

Harry's face hardened as he bore down at the man with as much hatred as he thought he could ever feel for someone. Perhaps even more than he felt for Voldemort. His eyes drew down, falling just as harshly on Hermione. "You've got ten minutes before I drag you worthless piece of scum back to Azkaban." He warned her sharply and Hermione hoped it was all for the sake of staying in character. His eyes looked so cold and she knew it was because he was trying his hardest not to show that her words had hurt him so badly.

They waited for Harry to leave the room before returning to their conversation. "I can't believe they snatched you. I thought you got away. I was sure of it." Carrow's tone had dropped, softened if only slightly, but Hermione still noticed the change immediately. Had his tough exterior just been for show while Harry was in the room? Perhaps she gauged their relationship incorrectly. They were siblings after all. Maybe this cold, cruel death eater had a soft spot for his little sister, much like the protective nature that many brothers felt for their sisters.

She mimicked his tone, gentling her own words as she responded with a shrug. "Yeah, well imagine how I felt. I thought I had gotten away too and then BAM!" Hermione balled her hand up into a fist and dropped it down onto the table as she emphasized the last word. Amycus nodded and the silence between them seemed to stretch longer than it should have. He was eyeing her and although Hermione couldn't tell whether or not this was normal for their relationship, it made her uncomfortable. She had to get him talking. Kingsley would be back soon and if this was in any way successful, Carrow would need to talk. "What have you told them?"

His voice turned angry again. She must have offended her. "I haven't told them shit! What do you take me for? Some kind of rat?" He lifted one of his chained hands and pressed at the side of his temple firmly, tapping the tip of his finger against his skull. "Maybe your time in Azkaban has made you lose your senses, speaking to me like I'm some kind of traitor."

Hermione breathed out a sigh of relief. If he hadn't told Kingsley anything, then that meant he also did tell them about Malfoy, or more important, about seeing her at the Manor. With the important part of her visit with the death eater taken care of, Hermione shifted over to her next question. She would need to get some sort of information for Harry and the Order to use if all of this was worth doing. "So what do we do now?"

His brows pressed down over his eyes as he repeated, "Now?"

"Yeah." Hermione agreed, rephrasing her question clearer. "To get out. What do we do?"

He wouldn't stop staring at her, examining her and it made Hermione feel like a bug being held underneath a muggle microscope. If given the chance, she was sure he would angle the scope's beam of light just right and set her ablaze, if only to watch her wriggle and squirm in place. She was thankful he was securely shackled, just like she was, because the way he was pressing into her with his eyes made her think he knew. He must have known that she wasn't really his sister. How could she be so stupid, thinking she could somehow pull it off? It was his sister after all, not some random death eater that he may have seen once or twice in passing! If there was one person he couldn't possibly be fooled about, it would be Alecto. Hermione cursed inwardly, trying not to meet his eyes, thankful that Alecto's messy brown hair was still dangling in front of her face. At least she could use the greasy, thick strands to hide from his stares.

She thought for certain that he could hear her breathing and the sound of her heart pounding against the inside of her ribs, but just when she thought he was going to call her out, he answered her question as if he was still talking to his sister. "We wait. We sit here and twiddle our thumbs until we get out of here."

Hermione frowned and pressed him further. "We're not going to break out of here?"

"How do you suppose we do that?" He lifted his hands, yanking again on the shackles that bound him. "Even if we didn't have these bloody chains on, do you really think anyone'll let you get close enough to them to snatch one of their wands? They'll hex you into a blubbering idiot before you even take the first step."

"But if we don't get out of here ourselves, how are we supposed to get out?" Hermione asked, earning her a wary look from across the table.

He hesitated and for a moment, Hermione thought she had slipped up. Perhaps this was something Alecto would have already known. She tensed, waiting for him to snap at her, but it didn't happen. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice, digging into her with his eyes. "We wait, little sister, until they have someone to trade us for, someone worth enough to them to agree to an exchange."

Unable to control the curiosity and concern in her voice, Hermione croaked out a soft, "Who?"

Carrow grinned, leaning closer to her, his forearms pressed firmly against the top of the table as the chains of his shackles pulled as far away from his body as they could. He was as close to her as he could get and Hermione willed herself not to move backwards, not to pull away from the table like the scared young witch that she was. She put on a stiff face and took in a deep breath, matching his stare in a effort to secure Alecto's identity even further.

His grin widened as somewhere deep in the cold, crazed pupils of his eyes, she saw the reorganization set in. He knew, no matter how well the potion had transformed her, no matter how well she played her role. He **knew**. As if trying to see past Alecto's familiar eyes into the person hidden behind them, he started to speak slowly, watching her face closely for any sign of a reaction. "Someone important… someone they've known for years… someone they'll miss. A boy?" He questioned and as Hermione started to quickly think of a list of all the male Order members in her head, her face must have given something away, because he swiftly changed his answer, pulling his lips back against his teeth as he grinned again. "No, a girl. But who…"

Hermione wanted to leave. She wanted to signal to Harry that she had had enough and that he could loosen her shackles and get her away from the death eater sitting across from her. He could sense that she wasn't who she claimed to be. He didn't know who she actually was underneath, but he was trying to work it out; she could tell that much from the way he kept watching her. It wasn't until he started rattling off descriptions of people, that Hermione realized what he was doing. He was _guessing_, trying to see who exactly had enough guts to try to impersonate his sister. "Potter's blood-traitor bride…" He watched but quickly disregarded Ginny. "No…he wouldn't risk her. The mother though..." Carrow stated, turning his head to the side slightly as he waited for Hermione's reaction. She had none, as she was trying to train her face still, trying to hide any emotions as she could from betraying her. "No, no." Amycus corrected himself again, but he was getting closer. She could feel it. "The blonde one," He tried again and at first Hermione was confused. There were only so many female Order members, and even fewer that were close enough to Harry to be worth kidnapping. But a blonde? It suddenly came to her. '_Luna,_' Hermione silently confirmed, but her confusion must have shown through and Carrow was already shaking his head again. "No…not her. Then who…"

He was supposed to be guessing who the V.R.S. could use to get them back, who they could kidnap and then offer in exchange for the Carrows, but in all honesty, Hermione knew that somewhere early on in his guesses, his meaning at changed. He stared straight through her and as he guessed witch after witch, he was now referring specifically to the person sitting across the table, inside of his sister's body. He was blatantly guessing who she was and as the number of witches left to guess shrank, Hermione felt her palms begin to sweat. "Who…" He began to ask again when his grin suddenly turned sinister, knowing, and his eyes gleamed with a sudden pride as he was positive he finally had the right answer. Somehow he pulled himself closer towards her, leaning further across the table then his shackles should have allowed. His final guess left his lips crudely as he smiled at her and breathed out heavily, "_Malfoy's mudblood slag_."

Before she could react, before she could turn around and signal to Harry in the other room to come and get her, to bring her back to safety, Carrow was on her. With the shackles still bound to his wrist but somehow free from his waist, he lunged across the table and grabbed at her throat. She tried to scream but his hands were on her before she could get more than a startled yelp out. Her chair flipped backwards and with her chains still attached to it just like Carrow's should have been, the table came with them, turning over onto its side and slamming down on the floor beside them with a loud bang. The death eater straddled her torso. She could feel one of his knees grinding down into her ribs as his fingers dug into the tender flesh of her neck. They would leave bruises, she knew it, but the only thing that she could think of was **air**. She needed more of it, quickly, but his hands crushed around her windpipe and no matter how hard she tried to kick her legs and pound at his chest with her fists, he wouldn't let go. He was so much bigger than she was and with her lying flat on her back and him on top of her, pinning her down, she was defenseless. Even her wand was far out of arms reach, locked away in Harry's briefcase in the other room. Her lungs burned as they were denied the oxygen she needed and all her eyes would focus on was the animalistic rage that shot down at her through his eyes.

* * *

><p>Harry had been watching the entire exchange from behind the door's tiny window. Just like Kingsley had said, the room's sounds had been silenced from where he stood, but he kept his eyes on Carrow, trying to gauge when the situation became too heated so that he could go back in and take Hermione out without blowing her cover. They seemed to be talking for a long time and Harry began to worry Kingsley would come back before they had finished. He watched as Carrow leaned in against the table and tried to somehow read his lips. If he could just hear what they were saying, then he could tell when enough was enough. But Hermione had told him she would signal when she needed to get out, and as observant as Harry had been, Hermione still hadn't signaled. Carrow pressed himself further against the table, leaning in as much as he could as his eyes suddenly became darker, piercing into Hermione indirectly through Alecto's body.<p>

_ 'This isn't good…they've gone far enough. I need to get her out of there.'_ Harry thought, disregarding the lack of a signal on Hermione's part. He left the window to go over to his briefcase, pulling out his wand as he feared it would be needed, despite Carrow being shackled and secured in place. He withdrew Hermione's wand and placed it on the table beside his briefcase for when she returned. With his wand in hand, he stepped back in front of the door and looked through the window. Hermione was on the floor and the table had been overturned. Carrow was on top of her, squeezing the life out of her. She was fighting as hard as she could but it was no use. Harry yanked the door open, wand extended at the ready and shouted at Carrow. "Get off!" But the death eater didn't listen, didn't even look up as he wrapped his fingers around her throat tighter. "Get off of her!" Harry warned one last time before sending the death eater hurling backwards against a wall. His back hit first, snapping his head back hard against the wall, knocking him out cold.

"Hermione!" Harry cried out, dropping down to his knees as she began to cough out the air that had suddenly rushed back down her throat. She turned over onto her side and drew her legs up, pulling her knees closer towards her chest as her lungs burned beneath her ribs. "Hermione, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have agreed to this. I just need to…" Harry's eyes danced wildly over the room, trying to search for what he was supposed to do. What spells were he supposed to use? If he tried to clear her airway when it was already open, just badly bruised, would that do more damage than good? And if her windpipe had collapsed, how was he supposed to fix it? He tried to stay calm but as he realized that he didn't know the spells to heal her, he got to his feet and headed for the door. "Just stay here! I'm going to get help!"

Her eyes were wide as she dragged in a heavy, painful lungful of air. The muscles of her throat felt sore and damaged, but she could feel the air pulling steadily down into her lungs and that was worth as much pain as each breath cost. She pushed herself upright, leaning against the overturned table as she tried to draw in breath after breath, still in shock from the attack, but thankful that Harry had come in when he did. She closed her eyes and felt her body's defenses shutting down her senses as it dealt with the trauma on her throat and the shock that had suddenly overwhelmed her system.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: I know, probably not as much HGLM interaction as I'm sure most of you expected, but the story must continue! :) They'll be plenty more **_**interactions_ in the next chapter, but hopefully this one wasn't entirely off-putting all on its own. Thank you for reading and reviewing. I love reading your thoughts and opinions on how the story is unfolding. On to the next chapter!_**

**_WildBubblesRoam xoxo_**


	32. Chapter 31

_**Author's Notes: This is such a short chapter compared to some of the others, which is why I was hesitant to end it where I did...which explains why it took so long to upload it to begin with. I know that's no excuse, but hopefully that explains why it's been so long. Either way, Chapter 32 has already been started and we'll see how quickly I can get that one finished, edited, and uploaded! Enjoy!**_

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><p>Chapter 31<p>

"This is completely unacceptable, Harry. _Completely _unacceptable!" Mr. Weasley's voice seemed to reach her sleeping ears first as Hermione began to wake.

"I'm sorry. We were just trying to help." Harry replied sheepishly and even without her eyes being open yet, she could tell that he was looking over at her. The concern and guilt in his voice gave her no doubts.

They were standing away from her, possibly even out in the hallway as it was harder to hear them when they weren't scolding him so loudly. She felt bad. After all, it had been her idea, not his. If she didn't suggest it, they never would have even thought to sneak into the interrogation room as a polyjuiced version of Alecto Carrow. It had been a brilliant plan. _'If it had just worked, that is.'_ Hermione gave up trying to listen to them. Their voices had gone too soft, or perhaps they had walked away from the room. She couldn't tell for certain but as she felt a hand grab her wrist, her eyes flashed open, snapping her arm back towards her body away from whoever had grabbed it.

"Oh, my. Sorry dearie. I didn't mean to startle you." A healer dressed in the traditional medic robes was sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. She smiled sweetly and Hermione noticed the healer's eyes drift down towards her neck. "May I?" The witch asked politely, motioning towards her throat gently and Hermione carefully lifted her chin, elongating her neck to be examined. The pain had subsided, though there was still a slight ache when she stretched her neck too far upwards.

The healer smiled again and leaned forward, delicately placing a hand on either side of Hermione's neck. She felt the left side where Carrow's fingers had dug into her flesh and then the right where his thumb had scratched a rather deep gash against her skin. The medic-witch paid careful attention not to touch the wound as it was still in the process of healing through magical means. Her hands left Hermione's neck as she offered another sympathetic smile to her young patient. "You were very lucky, dear. Just a little more pressure towards the back of your throat and I'm almost certain he would have snapped your neck."

Hermione winced as she laid her tired neck back against the pillows. _'Thank you for the details…really, that's _exactly_ what I wanted to hear!'_ She tried to stay as polite as she could, despite the healer's unwanted opinions. "I don't feel very lucky." Hermione admitted, her voice hoarse and quiet as the words squeezed out from under the bruised skin and muscles. "Can you tell the Minister that I'm sorry? I should have known better."

"You can tell him yourself. They've been hovering around here for the past hour waiting for you to wake up." The nurse-witch stood from the bed and cleared a few tonic vials from the table beside them. Just as she left Hermione's small curtained off section of the room, the flaps of the curtains moved again and Harry, Kingsley, and Mr. Weasley stepped into her little makeshift cubical.

"Hermione, I'm really sorry. I should have gotten you out of there sooner. I should have seen what he was going to do. I'm really, really sorry." Harry apologized, standing on one side of the bed while Kingsley was pulling a chair up closer to the opposite side. Harry followed his lead, dragging another chair up to the bed so he could sit down as well. Mr. Weasley chose to stand at the foot, his hands interlocked and hung loosely down at the front of his body as he examined her injuries silently.

Kingsley shook his head and corrected Harry's apologies sternly. "No, you should have never brought her in there to begin with. This was such a betrayal of trust, Harry. And if Carrow had managed to overpower you…I'd hate to think of the mess we'd be dealing with now if he had gotten loose."

"Sir, please. It wasn't Harry's fault. It was my idea, entirely. I had to practically beg him just to get him to agree." Hermione spoke and as Harry began to interrupt her, to bring the blame back onto him, she silenced him again and shook her head. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry for the trouble we've caused."

Mr. Weasley who had been silent up until now, finally jumped in. "What exactly were you trying to accomplish?"

Harry took the reigns, answering his question for the both of them. "We wanted to help. We knew that the Order and the Ministry weren't getting anywhere with him or any other death eaters we've had in custody." He glanced back down at Hermione. "We just wanted to give it a shot. If we had gotten information that could be used to take down the V.R.S., then we figured it would be worth going in there."

Kingsley seemed particularly bothered by Harry's wording. "Worth _this_?" He asked in frustration, pointing at Hermione's battered throat.

"Well, no." Harry started to rephrase his response. "I didn't mean that. We didn't think anything like this would happen. I mean, we thought-,"

"He was supposed to be chained to the table." Hermione helped him, finishing their conjoined answer as Harry gave them a quick nod in agreement.

The Minister's eyes narrows as he looked from Hermione to Harry, and finally to Mr. Weasley. "He was. I had secured him myself this morning when he was brought in fresh from the fighting last night."

Hermione disagreed, firmly stating again, "He wasn't chained to the table. He jumped over it to get to me. If he had been secured in place, he would have been just barely able to stand, let alone move around the room."

"I secured him." Kingsley repeated defensively. He turned back to Mr. Weasley. "Arthur, I need you to go back and tell them to check him again before he's placed in Azkaban. He has something on him, something that let him get out of his restraints, and I want to know what it was."

Mr. Weasley nodded briefly and left the room quickly. Harry had started to stand, intending to go with him, when Kingsley stopped him. "Not you. I'm sorry Harry, but I have no choice but to put you under a probationary period. For the next week, you'll be restricted to office work and judging by the amount of files you've been requesting lately, I'm sure you'll have your hands full enough to keep you busy."

"But Sir, I'm needed elsewhere. If there's another attack-,"

"_If_ there's another attack, you'll be notified. And _if _your presence is absolutely necessary, then and only then, will you be allowed to assist."

"But Sir-,"

"Harry, I've given you as much leeway as I can under these circumstances. If it were anyone else in your shoes right now, they would have been terminated immediately." Kingsley stood from his chair and began walking towards the curtain to leave.

"Come on, Harry. It'll be alright. Let's get out of here." Hermione shifted her legs off of the bed and tried to comfort him by reaching for his hand. Ever since the war had ended with Voldemort and Harry started working for the Ministry's Auror offices, his job had become his whole life. To call him a workaholic was putting it lightly and now that he was ordered to only performing paper work, Hermione knew that Kingsley had just crushed him.

It wasn't until the Minister turned back around to speak again that Hermione too felt the crushing effecting of their poor decision to sneak into Carrow's room. "You won't be going anywhere, Miss Granger. I've been assured by the staff here at St. Mungo's that a few extra days of rest is exactly what you need to finish healing properly."

Hermione frowned, drawing her brows down harshly as she began to protest. "But I feel fine. I can rest just as well back at the Burrow."

Kingsley sighed and shot her down again. "I'm afraid this situation is far more serious than either of you seem to understand. Your life has been threatened, quite severely by a known, dangerous dark wizard. While Carrow is still under our custody, there are many other dangerous people out there who would no doubt just as easily want you two dead. You've been placed under a 72-hour surveillance, for your own safety."

"You can't do that!" Hermione's voice rose as her eyes narrowed on the tall, broad-shouldered wizard she had always admired. Now, a few not-so-kind thoughts about the man standing in front of them were running through her head instead.

"I'm sorry, but you two have done this to yourselves. It'll just be a few days. It's for your own safety." The Minister repeated, trying to sound as stern as he could while understanding the blatant injustice that they were surely feeling.

"Yeah, you've said that already," Hermione grumbled under her breath as she tried to keep herself from rolling her eyes in protest. Kingsley shot her a look as if to say '_Watch-your-tone'_, and finally left. "This is so unfair, Harry. I'm sorry I dragged you into all this."

Harry shrugged and tried to make light of the situation. "You didn't exactly drag me into anything. I was as much for it as you were. And hey, at least it worked for a little while. Did you get anything from Carrow?"

Hermione's eyes lowered, defeated and slightly ashamed. "No. He didn't say anything, Harry."

He tried to correct her, tried to remind her of exactly what had happened. "But I saw him talking to you. Before he jumped on you, he was saying something but I couldn't make out what it was."

Carrow had said something and as Hermione remembered the vile way his mouth spat them out, she bit at the inside of her cheek agitatedly. The death eater had stared straight through her, seeing past his sister's eyes and dug right through to Hermione hiding inside. As Harry sat beside her bed now, waiting for her answer, Hermione recalled the offensive way Carrow had called her out before attacking her. _'Malfoy's mudblood slag…_' With a stiff upper lip and a steadiness in her voice, Hermione shook her head and insisted, "He wasn't making any sense. He didn't say anything worth repeating, Harry."

The nurse had insisted Hermione rest, forcing Harry out of the room at St. Mungo's and finally giving the poor young witch a moment of peace and quiet. They had all been kept away for the rest of the day and through part of the afternoon but as the evening crept closer and closer, the healer couldn't keep the Weasleys away from Hermione for a moment longer. The curtains were pulled back and before she knew it, nearly the entire family had come to visit with her.

Mrs. Weasley was the first to run up and give her a great big bear hug. "Oh Hermione dear, we're all so glad that you're okay." She turned to Harry and scolded him quickly. "Just **what** were you thinking letting her in there with that monster!"

"It's okay, Mrs. Weasley. I'm fine. It was my idea." Hermione explained again and knew that before the night was over, she would no doubt have to explain everything all over again just like she had done with Kingsley and Mr. Weasley earlier in the day.

Mrs. Weasley took a step back and Ron approached her cautiously. "'Mione, when I heard what had happened, I was so worried." He sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted her hand into his, cupping it tightly between his palms lovingly.

His gesture was sweet but the longer he held onto her hand, the more she wanted them all to leave. A friendly hug and a few kind words were always appreciated but the way Ron kept looking at her, as if their relationship had never been severed, made her feel guilty for wanting to remind him of that fact. She slipped her hand out from his and gave him a platonic pat on his knee. "Thanks Ron. But I'm okay, really. They're just keeping me here now because of protocol. I'll be out of here in a few days."

The second day was obnoxiously similar to the first. The Minister stopped by again to discuss what they had done, more specifically what Hermione had risked by going into the small room, unarmed, with a deadly wizard sitting just a few paces away from her. She listened and apologized, again, when it was necessary, and breathed out an exhausted sigh when he finally left. The Weasleys came by later in the afternoon to visit and check in on her before leaving her to rest for the duration of the night.

The first night had gone horribly. Her night terrors had returned, after such a long relaxing period without them, except this time Amycus Carrow starred in the majority of her dreams. At first the obvious had invaded her dreams. She remembered vividly how the crazed death eater had jumped across the table towards her, clawing at her neck and trying to drain the life out of her. Yet as she woke up, startled and sweating, and then returned back to sleep an hour later, another memory flooded her senses and for some reason, she found it harder to wake from.

She was back in Malfoy Manor and she had just pieced together enough of the torn up bits of parchment to know that Lucius had death eaters in the manor with them. She searched through the rooms for what seemed like ages before finally catching sight of them. A wand duel had broke out and as she remembered the way she huddled in the hallway outside of the sitting room, she tried to brace herself against the walls as they shot spell after spell at her. Carrow was particularly cruel in both his taunting of Lucius and his viciousness with Hermione. It was Carrow, in the end, who had ordered Lucius to finish her off. _'But he couldn't do it,_' Hermione remembered. _'He could, but he wouldn't._' Instead, the blonde dark wizard had held up his hands in surrender and mouthed out the instructions to strike him in the chest, hard, with a spell from her own wand. She hesitated at first, before following through with his demands and it was because of that sacrifice that she was able to get away safely that night. If Malfoy had fully flopped sides, joining the V.R.S. as they had believed he had done, she would have been like a sitting duck. They would have had no problem killing her and as she remembered the wild look in Carrow's eyes and the rage in his voice, she was sure he would take nothing but pleasure from doing it himself. He was as sick as they came and as Hermione sat up in her hospital bed late at night, she felt the tenderness on her throat and was thankful that his attack on her had been interrupted in time.

On the third and final day of her required stay at the wizard hospital, shortly after Harry and the Weasleys had left her to rest, Hermione received an unexpected visitor. She heard a pop as the air around her crackled with the magic of apparation and in the next second a short, scrawny, familiar little creature appeared on the bed right in front of her. "Miss Granger!" The tiny elf exclaimed happily, throwing herself at Hermione and wrapping her long, lanky arms firmly around the young witch.

Shocked to see Malfoy's house elf suddenly in bed with her, Hermione tried to hush her quietly. "Shh, Mimbi. You need to be quiet. If anyone sees you in here…" Mimbi had begun talking again, a little too loudly, and Hermione clapped a hand over the excited house elf's mouth, holding her in place until she was sure she had calmed enough to be silent. Hermione pulled her hand away and dragged her index finger up to her lips, waiting for Mimbi to acknowledge her meaning. Mimicking Hermione's movements, Mimbi brought her own long, bony finger up to her lips and nodded, still smiling like a wide-eyed little child. "What are you doing here? Does Lucius know you're here?" Hermione whispered.

Mimbi began to answer but Hermione had to hush her again to remind the enthusiastic little creature to speak softly. Finally, Mimbi lowered her voice enough to keep her presence as hidden as possible and answered with a bobble-head-like nod. "Master Malfoy sent Mimbi. Master Malfoy was worried."

Hermione suppressed a groan. _'Oh no. How did he find out?' _She grabbed the fragile elf by her skinny upper arms and looked her dead in the eyes. "Mimbi, you can't tell him that you found me here. I'll be getting out of here tomorrow morning and I'll go see him then, okay? Can you tell him that I'll see him tomorrow but that I'm busy now?"

Mimbi frowned and her eyes danced nervously over Hermione's as she tried to think over her instructions. As if confused by the young witch's request, Mimbi shook her head quickly. "Mimbi must not lie to Master Malfoy."

"No, see, it wouldn't actually be a lie. You just wouldn't be telling him the entire truth. Do you understand? So it's not a lie." Hermione tried to reassure her but Mimbi shook her head again.

"Mimbi must not lie." She insisted firmer this time. Hermione let go of her arms and Mimbi jumped to her feet, standing up on the bed's cushiony bed sheets with her big feet and wobbly little legs. "Master Malfoy ordered Mimbi. Mimbi must find Miss Granger. Mimbi must bring Miss Granger to Malfoy Manor. Mimbi _must_." She held out her hand for Hermione to take and waited.

Hermione pulled Mimbi back down onto the bed by her raggedy clothes and tried to hush her again. In her excited state, her voice had risen higher and Hermione was sure she heard footsteps coming closer to her curtained off area. Hermione grabbed Mimbi and pinned her against her chest, cupping a hand over the small house elf's mouth to keep her quiet. The foot steps stopped but they hadn't walked away. Hermione's heart skipped a beat as she tried to listen closer, praying that the healer on duty for the night didn't pull back the curtain and see Mimbi on the bed with her. "Everything okay in there?" The nurse called out and Hermione could tell she had heard one too many voices behind Hermione's curtains.

"Yup. Just getting ready to sleep." Hermione called back out, struggling to keep Mimbi still as she thrashed from left to right, trying to get out of Hermione's tight grasp. Her thick foot lashed out and kicked the bedside table loudly. Hermione nearly fell off the bed trying to regain her hold on the slippery little creature but Mimbi snapped her fingers as she hit the ground, disappearing just as the nurse pulled the curtains back. Hermione's hands went to the table and quickly yanked one of the drawers open. "Sorry. I was just grabbing a fresh gown to change into." She explained innocently.

The healer's eyes shot down to the drawer with as much doubt as Hermione had expected. The nurse looked up at the witch in the hospital bed and then glanced around the small area curiously. Sparing one final peek down into the drawer and then back at Hermione, she could find nothing out of place. "Well, best get some rest then. You'll need your strength tomorrow when you head out of here. I'll check in on you again in the morning."

Hermione nodded happily and flashed the healer a convincing smile. "Thank you. Good night." The healer left, closing the curtain as she did, and Hermione breathed out a sigh of relief when she heard her footsteps fully retreat back to the nursing station just outside the room. As if on cue, Mimbi popped back into the room, landing again right on top of Hermione's bed. The stiff, emaciated index finger of her right hand was placed over her lips while her left hand stretched far out to the side. She was holding a small vase in her hand, dangling it dangerously high above the hard tiled floor. The look in her eyes told Hermione exactly what the little house elf was planning. "_Don't you dare!_" Hermione mouthed firmly, glancing between the vase and Mimbi's determined eyes.

Mimbi tilted her head towards the vase suggestively and withdrew her index finger from her face slowly. She held it back out to Hermione, waiting again for the young witch to accept the apparation she was offering. This time, with the threat of smashing the vase and alerting the nurse again, Hermione took the house elf's skeletally skinny hand, disappearing them both far away from St. Mungo's.

She was fuming mad by the time Mimbi brought them to the Manor, but her anger didn't have as much time to fester as she had hoped. As if the whole thing had been planned out ahead of time, Mimbi apparated them straight to the library where Lucius was sitting, waiting for her. As soon as they touched ground, Mimbi vanished again, no doubt too frightened or ashamed in her actions to remain near Hermione for another second longer. Before her eyes had even fully settled on the blonde wizard sitting on the sofa, his voice greeted her with curiosity and concern. "What are you wearing?"

His eyes were scanning over her, roaming down the long shapeless form of the St. Mungo's patient gown she had on. Hermione snapped her arms over her chest, crossing them firmly as she addressed the inappropriate way she had been coerced into coming to the manor. "Do you have any idea what'll happen when someone finds my bed empty? I don't know what you expect me to tell them!"

The more he examined the gown, the quicker he realized that it was in fact from the wizard hospital and his scowl deepened. "Is this why you never answered my owl? I thought you were simply avoiding me."

"Why would I be avoid-," She began to ask before her frustration drew her back to her original point. "Ugh, I **need** to get back to St. Mungo's before anyone notices that I'm missing. Get Mimbi back in here so she can take me back. I haven't got my wand on me."

He was still watching her while she ranted. Before long, his eyes rolled down her face and spotted the few little bits of bruises that were left on her neck. He stood immediately and approached her. "What happened?" Lucius brought his hand up to gently cup the side of her face and lifted her chin carefully with his fingertips to examine the bruises.

The familiar scent of him strengthened as he stood closer to her and as it combined with his tender touches, her stomach fluttered with an untimely arousal. She remembered the way he had touched her, just as gently and just as lovingly a few nights ago. His scent had clung to her clothes the next morning and as he stood in front of her now, she could have sworn she could feel the body heat radiating off of him and onto her. As much as it disappointed the ache that was building inside her, she tried one last time to stress the emergency of her situation involving her abrupt absence from St. Mungo's. "Lucius, please." She started and as she said his name so sweetly, she felt his thumb gently caress the softness of her cheek in response. "I need you to call Mimbi back. I need to return to St. Mungos and I promise," She paused and brought her hand up to drape over the back of his, repeating her words with as much sincerity as she could. "I _promise_ that I'll come back in the morning and explain everything."

He searched her eyes for something. Honesty and truth, but most of all, the affection that he hoped she had developed for him since their intimate night together. Convinced he had found it tucked somewhere safely behind the overwhelming concern and pleading that she so clearly displayed, he nodded and reluctantly called out for Mimbi to return. The delicate creature reappeared but Lucius wouldn't let his hands leave her just yet. He slipped his fingers beneath her chin and brought his head down to meet hers with a kiss. It was tender and sweet, no doubt slightly gentler than he would have otherwise offered but with the bruising on her neck and no details for him to go on, he assumed the worst and did his best not to hurt her as their lips met.

It was Hermione who deepened their embrace, drawing her body closer to his as his hands dropped down away from her face and fell comfortably in the curves of her hips. A hand went to the back of his head, resting her forearm on his broad shoulder, and stroked his long blonde tresses. She needed to feel him closer, wanted his hair to tickle at her sides and her belly as he roamed all over her body, but she knew they didn't have time for that. With a hurried sense of desire, she deepened the kiss one last time, opening up to him as his hands squeezed tighter on her waist. The short stubble lining just below his bottom lip brushed against her chin as he pulled her waist closer to his, pressuring her lips to split and grant him the unlimited access that they both had begun to crave. Having been separated for days, her thoughts regarding Malfoy seemed to hibernate on their own but as she felt him so close and tasted him on her lips, the spark that had been lit between them days ago seemed to reignite and burst into the full-blown flame of a torch. If she stayed any longer, she knew that their embrace would only intensify and then it would be even harder for him to let her leave. Hermione placed a hand on his chest and pushed herself back away from him. His hands stayed trained on her hips, unwilling to let go until he had a promise of her return. "You'll come back?" He asked apprehensively, the crippling, foreign sense of desperation dripping off his tongue with those three simple words.

She could tell how difficult it was for him to let her leave the manor, especially after seeing the bruises and not knowing where they had come from. Hermione leaned in to taste his lips one more time before confirming with just as much desire, "I'll come back."

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><p><em><strong>ANs: As always, leave your thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc in the reviews :) I love reading them and they really do cheer me up quite a bit throughout my day. As for Chapter 32, as I've said, it's already been started and is in the process of being complete, so let's see if things go according to plan for Hermione and Lucius or if yet another wrench is thrown into the mix. Let's hope not. They really are delicious together, aren't they? ;) We'll see!<strong>_

_**WildBubblesRoam xoxo**_


	33. Chapter 32

_**Author's Notes: Thank you for all the lovely reviews! You all have been so incredibly kind and I thank you immensely for it! Your reviews, comments, and messages really do make me smile like a silly little dork all day, no lie.**_

_**I was a little unsure about this chapter. I won't say much but let's just say, if the M-rating somehow wasn't warranted before now, it most certainly is now! Enjoy!**_

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><p>Chapter 32<p>

Just as Kingsley had promised her, the following morning Hermione was allowed to leave the wizarding hospital. Her bruises had nearly healed, though there were still small traces of discoloration where Carrow's fingertips dug in the deepest. In the right light though, they were practically invisible. Harry met her at the hospital first thing in the morning and offered his assistance as somewhat of an escort for the morning. "Seriously, Hermione. I feel really bad. Anywhere you want to go, I'll come with you and keep you company."

"Thanks Harry but I think I'd really just rather get back to some sense of normalcy." Hermione refused politely as they walked out of the wing Hermione had been confined to and started walking towards the floo exits. "To be honest, I feel like with these last few days wasted here, I've fallen behind in my studies."

"Aw, come on, Hermione. I don't think you could ever do bad when it comes to learning. You're the smartest person I know." Harry replied, trying to cheer her up with a nudge of her arm with his elbow and a friendly smile. "How about some brunch? I'll take you anywhere you want to go."

Hermione eyed him curiously as a thought came to her. She grinned sneakily and asked, "You just don't want to be stuck in your office any more. Is that it?"

Harry blushed with another telling smile and looked away. "No, of course not. I'm just being a good friend, you know? You're like a sister to me." He draped his arm over her shoulders and Hermione wrapped hers around the back of his waist.

She laughed and nodded sarcastically. "Oh, right. Of course. It couldn't possibly be because you hate doing paperwork!" Harry laughed with her and shook his head but Hermione knew how much Harry hated being cooped up in his office all day. They reached an open floo exit and stopped. "How about this? You let me spend today studying at the library and tomorrow I'll spend the whole day in your office helping you sort through those files. Deal?"

"I don't know. I mean, they're kind of supposed to be confidential." Harry reached a hand up to the back of his head and messed with his hair uncomfortably. He hated telling any of his friends that they weren't allowed to do the things that he could as a Ministry worker, but after their stunt with Carrow days ago, Kingsley was keeping an incredibly close eye on the 'boy-who-lived.'

Giving him a nonchalant shrug, Hermione accepted it. "That's okay. I can do whatever work you have that isn't confidential. Surely there's something I can help you with."

"I'll find something. Thanks Hermione." Harry replied and with a quick hug, Hermione took the floo network out of the hospital. Once safely away from Harry and any other prying eyes and ear, she pulled out her wand and apparated to her true destination. Malfoy Manor.

Mimbi met her at the door, if only to let her in and show her to where Malfoy was located in the enormous house, but after that, she made herself scarce. Hermione was still cross with her over the whole kidnapping incident from the previous night and the nervous little house elf picked up on the witch's poor attitude straight away. Malfoy was in the dinning room, sitting at the end of an exceptionally long table, and appeared to be reading a page from the Daily Prophet after breakfast. Hermione walked up to the table and rested her hands on the back of the chair to Malfoy's right. When he saw her approaching the table, he folded the wizard newspaper up and laid it down in front of him. "You came back." His voice seemed almost doubtful.

"I said I would, didn't I?" Hermione frowned down at him, unsure if she should join him at the table in a chair or remain standing. She stayed on her feet and crossed her arms over the top of the chair casually. "Anything good?" Hermione asked, motioning towards the Daily Prophet copy he had been reading before she came in.

Lucius glanced down at it with disinterest before standing from his chair to approach her. "Nothing that explains why you had bruises all over your neck. Care to enlighten me?" The fingers of his right hand lifted gently underneath her chin, urging her to lift and extend her neck so he could see the faded injuries more clearly.

Hermione fidgeting with the wooden peaks at the top of the chair as she tried to think of a way to avoid the topic of Amycus Carrow all together. She looked away, drawing her neck away from his prying eyes as she looked back down at the table and dragged her focus off of Lucius. "It was nothing. I made a stupid decision and I'd rather not talk about it to be honest."

"No." Lucius replied quickly with a definite shake of his head, catching her off guard. Hermione expected more to follow, but nothing else did.

She glanced at him with uncertainty. "No?" She repeated, questioning his response.

"No," he said again, firmer than before. "I'd like an explanation. You've been hurt and although I don't know how badly yet since you refuse to tell me, I'm going to assume it was more than just a '_stupid decision._'" He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for an appropriate explanation. If simply asking her wouldn't draw out the truth, perhaps a more authoritative approach would do the trick.

Hermione shook her head and moved closer towards the table, trying to again veer off the topic of her bruises. Nothing good would come from Lucius knowing about her little trip to see Carrow. She dismissed him again. "I appreciate the concern but it's honestly not needed. I'm fine now, see?" She lifted her chin, exposing her neck and although the bruises were still faintly there, they had faded and healed with exceptional speed thanks to the aid of magic.

Taking the opportunity as it was presented to him, Lucius stepped towards her again and pinched her chin between his fingers and thumb, holding her in place as he stared down at her dominantly. His piercing blue-grey eyes wouldn't let her look away from him this time and as he finally felt like he had her full attention, he offered quietly, "Give me the _name_, and I'll take care of it." His voice had gone hard, low and steady as his eyes stilled on hers, pushing the promise in his words to the forefront.

She knew exactly what he meant, how he intended to take care of things. The stiff, cold detachment from his words could be seen in his eyes. Matched with the way his voice had dropped down to an almost growl of a promise, she had no reason to doubt his deadly seriousness. She couldn't accept his offer. She couldn't have someone else's death on her conscience, even if it was someone as vile and as cruel as Amycus Carrow. But even more than that, she wouldn't let Lucius put that death on his conscience either. He was meant to be reformed, a changed man. His death eater days were over now, and even though the V.R.S. believed him to be on their side, Hermione knew that they only had a small part of him, if only because of Draco. She reached up and placed her hand around his wrist, loosening his grip on her chin and lowering both of their hands down to his side. "He's in custody. There isn't anything left to take care of." Hermione assured him calmly and as her words reached his ears, an expression of sudden recognition struck him.

"Amycus Carrow did this?" He asked, the rage suddenly surfacing as he was finally able to put a name to the bruises he had seen only a night ago. His hands clenched tightly down by his sides as he tried to keep his voice level. "I'll kill him." Lucius nodded as his eyes darted away from hers to glance back down at her neck. But as his anger continued to take over, he shook his head and walked around to the other side of the table briskly, no doubt aimlessly pacing in order to prevent himself from doing something more destructive with his quickening temper. "I'll slit his throat and watch him bleed out." Lucius nodded again as his eyes began to seem clouded. He was obviously gone, away from the dinning room and lost in his sadistic plotting. His years as a loyal death eater had hardened him and numbed him to how law-abiding citizens dealt with their troubles. Where as someone would ordinarily ignore the source of their troubles, or choose to deal with them in a legal, non-violent way, a death eater on the other hand might just as easily jump to threats of murder.

Hermione needed to reel him back in, and fast. "You're not going to do anything, Lucius." She rounded the table, letting a single chair stand between them as she tried to talk him down. "That's not how the Order deals with things. That's not how we _take care_ of things. The Order doesn't go around killing people just because they did something we don't approve of." His eyes remained off of her while his fists stayed balled up tight. She tried again. "The Ord-,"

"I'm not a part of the Order," Lucius cut her off, no longer able to control his tongue as his temper still held onto him firmly. "I'm not obligated by their rules." His words felt harsh and bitter between his teeth, causing Hermione to take a short pause in her lecture to recover her original thoughts.

"You _are_ a part of the Order. Whether you like it or not, whether they acknowledge you as one of us or not, I'm in the Order and by association, you are too." Hermione explained, trying to get him to look back at her. If only he could see her instead of this cloud of anger and revenge that seemed to shield over him like a stone, then maybe she could get him to see the truth.

He chuckled. "It doesn't work like that, Miss Granger. I think you and I both know that if I decided to walk right up to your precious comrades, they'd sooner strike me where I stand than see me as one of their own."

"It doesn't matter." She shook her head and took a step towards him. Her hand fell softly on his forearm and waited for his fist to loosen. "None of that matters. But if we're going to be working together, you're going to follow the Order's rules."

The tall wizard's other hand finally loosened as he dragged his eyes back onto her. As much as he tried to ignore it, focusing instead on her eyes and the curves of her lips, he couldn't help but glance back down at the faint bruises on her neck. "The Order won't do anything about this. They'll let this go and act as if it never happened." Lucius shook his head and looked away again as he felt his temper begin to return. "He shouldn't be allowed to get away with this. Not without some sort of punishment."

"Lucius, he's in custody. It's not as if he's been set free after attacking me. He's not getting away with anything." Hermione let her hand move down his arm, past his wrist, and rested comfortably in his palm. If her words only couldn't calm him, perhaps the simple feeling of her closeness to him could prove effective.

Though he was still uneasy with her words and even more unhappy with his inability to strike back against Carrow, Lucius gave her hand a warm squeeze in response. "If he's so secure in custody, how did this happen? You might have absolute trust in the Ministry and the Order, but I don't. They let this happen once. They'll let this happen again."

Hermione's eyes began to wander as she searched for an explanation. "Actually…they didn't exactly let it happen. That is to say, they didn't really know I was there." With a shameful sigh and a soft blush of embarrassment, Hermione explained how she had convinced Harry to sneak her into the interrogation room with Carrow, unknown to Kingsley or any of the other ministry members.

He listened intently and waited until she was finished before shaking his head disapprovingly. "Considering how intelligent you are, I find it hard to believe you could possibly think to do something so stupid. Do you have any idea what he could have done to you? What he _would_ have done to you if he hadn't been stopped?" Malfoy's mouth pulled into a stiff scowl as he scanned over her face. "You need to be more careful."

"I needed to be certain he wasn't going to tell Kingsley or Harry about us." Hermione sighed and shook her head weakly. "Even now, I'm still not positive that he won't say too much."

Lucius lifted an eyebrow and smirked. "If he were dead, he wouldn't say a word."

Hermione shot him a warning look. "What did we just discuss? Did you forget the rules already?"

He chuckled and let his freehand lift up from his side to rest on the curve of her waist. "It was a joke. If he says anything about our seemingly close association, we'll deal with it then. We'll say he's gone mad or that he simply read the old newspapers and got confused on the timeline." Malfoy's other hand split from hers and went to the other side of her waist. "We'll say whatever we need to say to keep prying eyes off of us."

Following Lucius's lead, Hermione shifted closer towards him and draped her arms over his shoulders. Her fingers found his long blonde hair and began to softly play with the enticing locks pulled back behind his neck with a neatly knotted black ribbon. A sudden thought crept into Hermione's mind as she felt his hands guiding her purposely back against the edge of the massive, darkly-tinted dinning room table. His face dipped down to the crook of her neck as Hermione felt the sleek surface of the table finally touch her backside. It felt cold, even through the fabric of her pants, but the heat of his palms on her hips and the steady breath lingering over her collarbone kept her warm. She closed her eyes and lifted her chin as his mouth claimed the smooth, fair skin of her neck beneath his lips. He was making his way up the side of her neck, lingering seductively just below her jaw line when she made her thought known. "He called me yours." _Surrounded by a few, much less polite words, one of which starting with 'mud' and ending in 'blood' but still, the meaning had been there._

His mouth stilled for a moment before Hermione felt what seemed to be a smile brushing lightly over the arch of her jaw. "Would that really be such a horrible insult?" He asked quietly. Lucius's hands slid down from her waist to cup her bottom and lifted her up just enough to reposition her on top of the table in front of him. Taking a step towards her, he settled between her legs, brushing past her knees with his waist as his lips finally found hers.

The taste of him and the feel of his fingertips rolling slowly down her hips to her thighs made her melt against him, drawing in a shallow breath when their kiss hesitantly broke. He hadn't planned on ending up the way they were, certainly not on the dinning room table out of all places, but as her lips brushed temptingly back over his, Lucius drew his hands back up her thighs to collect at the center of her waist. His fingers twisted at the button and zipper combo that most muggle jeans tended to have, as obnoxious as they were, and tore them down to her knees with an unbridled fervor.

As the direct cold of the thick table's surface touched the backsides of her thighs, Hermione felt a shiver roll up his spine, but the heat coming off of their bodies made it impossible to interrupt the way his hands roamed over her bare skin. They lingered over her thighs, caressing at the softer, less often exposed inner sides as his mouth fell back down to her neck. Her pulse had quickened, beating stronger against his tongue and his lips as he drew his fingers to the edge of her undergarments.

"It doesn't matter whether you're mine or not, witch." Lucius drawled lustfully. His fingers pushed past the bit of thin fabric separating them and felt the warmth tucked safely beneath. Hermione drew in a sharp breath as the length of his digits filled her. Lucius trailed his suckling kisses up the stretch of her neck and hovered teasingly beside her ear as he listened to her respond to the different movements that his fingers performed inside her. "You'll remember me all the same." His words hummed at her like a promise as he slowly slipped his hand away from her center and gripped instead at her inner thigh possessively. "Lay back."

Her cheeks had gone red with his fingers' taunting but the way his eyes seemed to devour her as she sat atop his massive, black dinning room table made her crave more. Carefully, she lowered herself back down on the table's sleek top, lying her back flat across the width of its surface and breathing in a heavy breath as she felt his hands pulling her jeans down the rest of the way until they hit the floor.

Lucius took hold of her hands and placed them purposefully down by her sides. He laid them out flat on the table just beside her hips and smirked down at her. "Let's see how long you can keep those there." With another just as satisfied smirk and an especially long kiss between them, Lucius straightened up and looked down at her. If he had known only a year ago that he would have this particular muggle-born Gryffindor not only stretched out on the table in front of him, but looking up at him with such an untamed flame of desire and need, he would have laughed and called it a lie.

And yet, there she was. His eyes slid down her still clothed torso until they reached her exposed lower half. Her skin was pale but held home to a mixture of light brown curls, stray beauty marks scattered delicately over her otherwise unmarked flesh, and the deep pink colorings of her northern lips. They still glistened enticingly from where his fingers had previously been. He took one last look down at her face, still flushed with heat, before pulling a chair out from the table beside her leg and repositioning it firmly between them.

The tall blonde wizard sat down slowly and wrapped his arms around her legs, hooking them by the base of her bottom and pulling her forward towards the edge of the table. She stifled back a startled breath but as his head confidently lowered down and disappeared between her legs, the soft, sensual noises that escaped her began to echo throughout the massive, almost empty dinning room around them.

She tasted sweet and as he dipped further into her with his tongue, the more he felt her wriggle and squirm against him with her body. He brought his hands up to rest on her thighs in an effort to steady her but the feeling of his hot hands so close to her core gave her the opposite response. Her hands remained firmly pressed down on the table around her but the pleasure of his mouth made it almost impossible to lie still.

"Lucius," she breathed out midway through a strained moan. His lips curled into a pleased grin as he heard his name for the first time since their activities had begun for the day. He wanted to hear it again.

He growled in response, loving the way her thighs trembled along the stubble of his cheeks when he let his vocals vibrate against her sex. "That's a good witch... Let me hear you." His mouth returned back to her opening as his teeth grazed greedily over her lips. She squirmed against him, her fingers curling into fists as his affections were beginning to push her over the edge. "Keep your hands on the table and I'll give you what you need."

His arms hooked back around her legs and pulled her closer towards his mouth, giving him a deeper angle and more control over her restless movements. Her hands flattened back out on the table and Lucius smirked, grumbling a heated, "Good girl," over the sensitive little bundle of nerves at the peak of her slit. His tongue flattened over the width of her sex and slowly spread a heavy lick up the length of her lips before settling on the tight little bud tucked safely between the start of her moistened folds. He teased it with the smoothness of his tongue and lips before taking the tiny sensitive bit into his mouth and forcing out a low growl on top of it. He heard her moan in response as her legs tried to squeeze closed around his head. His hands pinned them open as his mouth dove back onto her, grazing his teeth gently over her clit as his tongue sunk into her.

"Lucius, please," she begged, her hands beginning to lift up off the table to reach for the thick locks of blonde hair buried firmly between her legs.

Another smile pressed against his lips as he felt her growing closer and closer to her breaking point. "Hands," he warned sternly before focusing back on her engorged, reddened core. Her hands hesitated, clenching tightly into frustrated fists before lowering back down onto the table by her sides. Unable to release her built up tension and desire through her own physical touch, Hermione focused on what his mouth was doing to her. He was driving her mad and as his movements within her became more and more of what she craved, her hips began to buck and reach for him.

Lucius gripped at her legs and lifted her backside off the table as her legs rested over his shoulders for support. He buried his face into her, the bridge of his nose tickling and tantalizing her clit as he devoured her. Her legs were quivering around him as the first waves of her desire crashed through her, but he continued on. The freshly sensitized feeling of her womanly bits after the first release sent her into another frenzy as the stubble of his face brushed against her most tender parts.

As her second wave washed over her, Lucius felt his own need become too overpowering to ignore. He placed her back down on the table and quickly tore through the confines of his trousers. She looked exhausted, and rightly so, but the fire in her eyes burnt up at him as she finally was able to see his face come up out from between her legs. His lips shone with a wetness that she could place just as easily as the glistening moisture that she felt on his fingertips as he took hold of her legs and widened them around his waist. Her limbs felt weightless as she came back down from the second sensual rollercoster he had sent her on, but Hermione felt Lucius quickly positioning himself at her opening and knew he wasn't even close to finished.

"Give me one more, darling. Then we can rest." He murmured down to her, leaning forward onto the table with his hands, pressing them down on the firm surface beneath her. Weakly, Hermione reached up to rest her hands on the thick muscles of his biceps. His chest seemed bigger from the angle beneath him and as she felt him enter her, she couldn't tear her eyes away from his. His hair was slightly disheveled as a few thin strands had broken free from the black ribbon while he went down to taste her, and his cheeks appeared flushed from the way her legs had brushed up against them, but his eyes...

They stared down at her with such a burning sense of hunger as he thrust into her with lust-filled movements. She was slick from the previous two sensations but he filled her so perfectly and as the friction began to steadily build between his pelvis and her aroused sensitive flesh, she started to move along with him, reaching for that last final release that they could both share.

Her legs wrapped around his waist and settled loosely in the cuts of his hips. His release was close and as he bent his elbows down to rest on the table with them instead of his palms, he dipped down to capture her lips with his. She tasted herself on him and felt him shift his hips even closer to hers. The thickness of his shaft reached a sweet spot within her and as he repeated his movements, she felt it again. A tender area that made the arousal flutter through her like a swarm of wild butterflies, spreading over her and leaving her skin with a thin layer of goosebumps meant only for him.

"Oh gods, Lucius," She meant to beg him not to stop, to urge him to continue whatever he had just done to her, but as he continued on his own and she felt the sweet spot triggered again, her words turned to incoherent moans of pleasure beneath him.

He felt her tighten around him, both with her legs and the grip on his arms, and as he felt her quickly approaching her third release, he found himself trailing closely behind her with his own. The sweet little sensations as her muscles spasm and released around his manhood sent forth his own climax and left him to collapse weakly beside her on the surface of the dinning room table moments later. Lucius grabbed hold of her hand in his and pulled it up to his lips lovingly before apparating them both to the more appropriate surroundings of his own bedrooms.

It was quarter past one o'clock when Hermione finally woke. She stretched her arms out wide and realized immediately that the bed was empty except for her. She thought of going back to sleep. No doubt this king-sized bed fixed with extra fluffy blankets and covers, not to mention the unlimited amount of privacy that it came with, were all ten times better than she knew any rest that she'd get at the Burrow would be. The hand-me-down beds were old and rickety, and as far as privacy went, if you managed to get ten minutes of alone time in the loo during the mornings, you were lucky. Hermione rubbed at her eyes and gave her arms another refreshing stretch before she heard a knock on the door.

"Are you decent?" Malfoy's voice came calling through the door and Hermione was almost taken aback by his question. Apparently he had remembered her previous response to him walking in on her nude and learned a lesson or two in the process.

She grabbed her shirt off the bedside table where it sat neatly folded, possibly even freshly laundered by a certain little house elf, and threw it on. "Come in."

He looked just as neatly and in order as he always managed to appear. Not a hair out of place and not a loose thread in sight. In his hands, he held a book. "You slept a while. I hope you're not still too exhausted."

"No, I'm fine. Just needed the rest I suppose." Hermione eyed him playfully as he walked over to the bed and sat down on its edge. "Why? Were you planning on tiring me out again?"

A wicked smile crept over his face as he leaned towards her and pressed a kiss to her lips. "Later, if the offer still stands."

Her eyes narrowed as she dissected his words carefully. "Why wouldn't the offer stand?"

Lucius looked down at the bed sheets and dropped his eyebrows harshly as he finally admitted to her his plans for the day. "I have a meeting to attend, with the V.R.S."

"Now?" Hermione asked. "It's the middle of the day on a Thursday. What could possibly be so important to draw death eaters out before nightfall?" She glanced at his stone expression and added, "No offense, but they seem to be a bit nocturnal in their dealings, don't they?"

He ignored her last suggestion and made one of his own. "You're intelligent, Miss Granger. Use your best judgment. Which very public, very populated event is set to occur in only a few days time?"

Hermione frowned as it suddenly hit her. "The wedding," She breathed out softly, darting her eyes over to his to make sure she was right in her suspicions.

Lucius nodded and continued. "If my intentions pay off, nothing will happen. I'll try to steer them away from the wedding entirely." He shrugged and shook his head. "I'll say that I overheard some ministry workers discussing how intense the security measures are going to be. I'll tell them that I've heard rumors of foreign Aurors coming in from out of country just to ensure the wedding goes flawlessly." He shook his head again and admitted. "I don't know if any of that will work, but I don't really have any other options." His eyes fell back on hers as he took one of her hands in his. "Will you be here when I return? It shouldn't take long."

"Every time you say that, you come back hours later, practically unconscious and soaking blood all over the floors."

"It's just a meeting. I'll return in one piece. Then we can start discussing your part in all this." He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it much like the gentleman he still claimed to be, despite his scandalous past and what they had just done hours ago. He passed her the book he had brought in and got up to leave.

"Wait," Hermione stopped him. "Why are you doing this? You've never tried to change their plans before. You've always just warned me about them beforehand and hoped they turn out for the best. Why change now?"

Lucius smirked as he looked back at her and chose to use her own words from just that morning. "I'm a part of the Order now. I might as well start acting like it."

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><p><em><strong>ANs: I'm really, really not experienced with writing oral scenes like this, so I have no idea whether this turned out good or not. It's not really my thing, but hopefully it wasn't half bad and if it was, well...we can just move on and never mention it again, agreed? :) I'm excited for the next chapter (I know, I write this about nearly every chapter but it's been a fun story to write!) so if you haven't lost interest yet, stay tuned and let me know what you think! :)<strong>_

_**WildBubblesRoam xoxo **_


	34. Chapter 33

**_Author's Notes:_**

**_!WARNING! This chapter may contain subject matter that could possibly be triggering to those suffering from or in recovery of an eating disorder. This triggering effect has never and will never be at all what I intend to create, but I thought it'd be best to warn of this potential risk beforehand._**

**_If anyone does find this to be troubling, I've decided to write a very simple recap of what's happened in this chapter, posted at the very end of this chapter, so that you may continue reading this story without having to skip over this part and miss what's happened. For anyone who does not find this sort of subject matter troubling, I apologize for the length word count due to author's notes. This is a one time thing and will only occur again if such triggers appear in the future, which I doubt. Thank you for your understanding._**

**_Enjoy and as always, reviews, comments, favorites, and alerts are always encouraged. I love the feedback and as goofy as it sounds, it really does brighten my day immensely. xoxo_**

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><p>His knuckles rapped firmly against the old wooden door of the isolated farmhouse in front of him. It's many flaws and imperfections stood out more under the bright mid-afternoon sun than it had at night; the rotting wooden frame around the doorway, the stained and dirtied floorboards of the weathered porch, as well as the soiled state of the rusted doorknob made Lucius thankful he had decided to knock. It meant he wouldn't have to touch anything more than absolutely necessary.<p>

The door opened quickly, yanked roughly as if the younger blonde man had been expecting him. He hadn't. Draco's face dropped with disappointment before solidifying into a hardened mask learned well over the years. "What are you doing here?" He demanded rudely.

Lucius grimaced with an exhausted air of disgust at his son's harsh approach before stepping forward into the house, pushing the door open further despite Draco's attempt to hold it in place defensively. "I was invited." The father stated plainly as if that's all the answer he needed to provide, though when Draco shot him a less than polite glare as he brushed past him through the doorway, Lucius cut in sharply, "Don't be disrespectful. Your mother didn't raise you like that."

Draco snarled a mumbled response under his breath, looked outside beyond the porch on either side, and shut the door, locking the deadbolt with his wand. "You're late. The meeting's almost started."

Lead through the worn old house by his son, Lucius was brought up the rickety stairs, down the long hallway, and to the last door on the right. From the silence outside the room, he wouldn't have guessed it was nearly filled to full capacity by a varying array of wizards and witches.

"Late as usual, Malfoy, eh?" Antonin Dolohov was the first in the room to spot him as he entered behind Draco. Dolohov laughed loudly, a drink in his hand as he sat in an old raggedy armchair in the far left corner of the room. A fair number of armchairs had been arranged in the room as well as a set of two sofas, all of which held death eater after death eater, familiar faces all around.

"Don't mind him, Lucius. Come, sit. Have a drink with us. We're still waiting on one more before we can begin." Crabbe called to him from the center of the room. He had been pouring the last of a dark liquid from a glass bottle into a short drinking glass. "Draco, fetch another bottle, will you?"

Draco's voice sounded smothered in comparison to the rowdy group of chattering people surrounding them as he answered softly, "That was the last one."

Disappointed though not excessively so, Crabbe frowned with a nod, lowering the empty bottle back down to the small table which held the rest of the discarded liquor they had gone through already. "Shame. We'll have to go on a run later tonight. Organize a group of five or six after we're done here and grab whatever you can find from that village to our east." Draco nodded, stealing a glance at his father as Crabbe walked towards them. "Good man," he praised, dropping a heavy hand onto Draco's shoulder.

_'Give him a good scratch behind the ears and he'll do anything you ask of him...'_ Lucius thought enviously, a twist of bitter resentment passing through the silent remark. He eyed the somewhat paternal exchange warily before taking a seat on one of the sofas beside his brother-in-law, Rodolphus Lestrange. "I received word of your brother only recently. I hadn't realized Rabastan was one of the wounded. Send him my best and wish him a quick recovery."

"I would say tell him yourself but he hasn't been awake for longer than a few minutes this past day or so." Rodolphus took a sip from his drink and frowned. "He's said to recover, but how long that will take isn't exactly clear yet." Lucius nodded silently. "Your wife's been a great help to us all, Lucius." He motioned towards Draco slightly and added, "And your boy's done well."

With another simple nod, Lucius thanked him and offered his pardons as he got up off the sofa. "Excuse me." He passed through the room, carefully making his way between armchairs and the few wizards left standing due to a lack of adequate seating. The room felt smothering and with Draco shooting him daggers from across the room, he needed some air before he could be expected to sit through the entire meeting. Aimlessly, he wandered down the hallway to clear his head. The rooms he passed held the wounded he had just previously spoke of. The air around them smelled of iron and filth, not to mention the obvious mixture of various forms of sick that each room held at least a single bucket of. He recognized more than a few of them but kept walking past their rooms, ignoring the bloodied bandages, the soiled sheets, and the occasional cries of pain that reached him out in the hallway.

There was a washroom down the other end of the hallway which he hurried into, closing the door securely behind him just in time to find himself hunched over the sink, his stomach suddenly lurching violently up into his throat and demanding an immediate exit. Thankful that he chose to use a thin black ribbon to contain his hair behind his head before leaving the Manor, Lucius dragged the back of his hand over his mouth, spitting out the vile taste that lingered on his tongue even after his stomach had emptied its contents completely.

He felt like he did years since past, at his first meeting with Voldemort. He had done the very same thing all those years ago, gotten sick in the bathroom before going to face him. Except this time, there was no Voldemort to meet. There was no mark to take and no Dark Lord waiting to crucio him for the hell of it.

_'Pull yourself together! What are you? Some quivering little schoolboy?'_ His eyes lifted from the soiled basin beneath his chin to his own reflection in the filthy, rusted mirror directly in front of him. There were dark lines under his eyes and his face had paled whiter than normal. He knew nearly every single person in this house, most certainly everyone in that room, and yet as he thought of sitting with them, discussing tactics and plans, he felt sick with nerves. The difference between simply passing information along to the Order and actively helping them while still saving face with the V.R.S. had suddenly hit him. If they proposed another attack, it was up to him to somehow steer them in a different direction, all the while protecting his own back by keeping his intentions and true motivations hidden. The muscles of his stomach tightened involuntarily again, causing him to retch dryly, having nothing else to bring up. It felt almost worse the second time around, turning into a sickening cough midway through. _'How in the hell did Severus do this for so long?' _He wondered weakly as he willed his stomach to give him some ounce of piece.

Spitting out what he assumed to be the last of his insides, Lucius let the water run in the sink until he could no longer smell the ugly evidence of his sudden weakness. With his hand, he collected a bit of water to rinse out his mouth and splash at his face before he dared to straighten up and leave the washroom. If Severus could do it for years, surely he could manage for one meeting.

On his way back down the hallway to the room of death eaters waiting, Lucius spotted a familiar man walking up the stairs, guided by Draco. "Lucius," he greeted him.

"Yaxley, I didn't know you had made it out." Lucius replied. He was referring to the war more than anything else, but the slightly shorter blonde wizard understood his meaning clear enough.

"Did any of us really make it out?" Yaxley responded depressingly. Lucius agreed with an understanding nod. He was right after all. Whether they avoided Azkaban or not, the fate of the death eaters after the war was certainly not what any of them expected. "I suppose that's why we're all here." Yaxley offered as they walked down the long hallway.

Lucius followed, back to the room that made his stomach churn angrily. He managed to steer himself towards one of the few empty armchairs, several others choosing instead to remain standing. Draco closed the door, sealing it securely with his wand before taking his place in one of the corners of the room, standing beside an old unusable fireplace that looked like it was about to crumble at any moment. Lucius's eyes followed him carefully before movement in the center of the room caught his attention.

Crabbe had stood, welcoming Yaxley with a hearty handshake and a few warm words, but when neither sat down, and Macnair rose to join them, they had claimed Lucius's full attention. As far as he could recall, the three wizards had never been particularly close, at least no closer than any fellow followers of the Dark Lord had typically been. He watched them carefully as the sole attention of the room fell upon them.

"I think I speak for all of us when I say this room is pleasantly crowded." Crabbe stated with a smile. "It's good to see so many of you were able to break away from your busy schedules to spend an afternoon with us." A thin layer of laughter and brief chuckles echoed around the room, though Lucius was still sitting stiff in his chair, examining every word as if there had been some carefully placed hidden message within the simple ice breaker.

"You've all been asked here because you play key roles in what we'd like to consider to be the true final war." Yaxley's statement took a more serious turn. He was all business and as his hard, stern eyes traveled around the room, he began to give praise to their recent accomplishments. "Antonin, you've stuck with us from the very beginning, and fought with all you've had these past few months. Without your skill and devotion, we couldn't have risen up so quickly from the ashes of our former defeat alongside the Dark Lord."

"From the beginning and to the end, my friend. As it should be." Dolohov answered, perhaps with a bit more dramatic flare than he normally would have, though the drinks he had been consuming for the past couple hours could easily be to blame.

Yaxley turned to Rodolphus and gave him an appreciative nod. "Your family has sacrificed greatly for our cause, both before and after the war. You'll always have a place among our ranks and within our homes. Your loyalty is among the strongest we've seen yet." Rodolphus returned the nod, lifting his nearly empty glass as if to toast the speaker or perhaps to honor those in the Lestrange family who had already sacrificed for the greater good as Yaxley had mentioned. Bellatrix had given her life for their former Lord, and now his brother Rabastan was fighting to regain his own after being freed from Azkaban, though wounded in the process.

"And Draco," Yaxley continued warmly, an odd tone for such a hard, stone-faced man, but he managed it. "Come here, Draco. You've done so well." As requested, the youngest Malfoy stepped forward away from the fireplace to stand beside Yaxley. He felt a group of hands pat him on the back as he passed the sea of scattered dark wizards and witches, each one feeling more rewarding than the last. As he met with the group of leaders in the center of the room, Crabbe gave him a proud smile and Yaxley continued. "For someone so young, so inexperienced, you've truly shined. You've proven yourself, Draco, and when the time comes for us to finally reclaim our freedom and our lives, as much as the Ministry would like to see us left stripped of everything, you'll be among the first to receive the rewards we'll surely reap."

A proud grin spread over the young man's face as his cheeks flushed with a slight pink glow. "Thank you. I've done what I can."

Crabbe smiled and gave him an approving tilt of the head. "That's all we can ask, is for your loyalty and your unwavering efforts."

Lucius watched as Crabbe motioned beside him at the chair he had previously been sitting in, guiding Draco to the seat with another pat on the back. _'Touch my son one more time and you won't have anything but a stump left,'_ Lucius growled silently. Crabbe had lost his son during the end of the war. Now, with Lucius and Draco at odds, and the younger Malfoy seemingly kept tightly under the other man's thumb, Crabbe had regained a son in a way. It irked Lucius to the point to where his eyes shifted over to Crabbe and never left, watching his movements carefully.

"Now I know as cramped as we all may seem to be in here, this group is still seemingly small in comparison to the big goals we have in mind." He paused to glance around at the various faces staring back at him before explaining confidently, "There are others, many others. Don't let that worry any of you. We have the numbers and are adding to them each and every day." His eyes settled on a few men in particular, as if to thank them for their assistance in recruitment and they nodded in return, acknowledging his subtle praise.

_'Well he's learned something from Voldemort... praise and rewards can be just as effective at motivation as punishments had been, if not better.'_ Between Crabbe and Yaxley, the two had been dealing out compliments nearly nonstop so far, and the meeting had just barely begun. _'Scheming politicians, both of them.'_ They knew what they were doing, he would give them that much. Keep their followers happy and hopeful, and they would keep them for much longer than if they were to beat them into submission like Voldemort had done. But by using Voldemort's name and what work he had previously laid out for them, their journey to the top must have been easily managed after the Dark Lord's defeat. Lucius watched as Yaxley's eyes fell to his. They must have acted immediately after Voldemort's death, if not even before it, scraping around among the ranks to recruit those that they could at the time. It would have taken them years to build up such a large following, but if they began immediately after the war, they had plenty of time at their disposal. Lucius glanced around the room at the many witches and wizards present, all eyes on the three men in the center of the room. It seemed so silent that they could hear a pin drop. _'They've used their time wisely,'_ Lucius concluded, unsure of whether to feel jealous of their success, or to fear it.

"Lucius," Yaxley addressed him. "I understand from what I've been told, that you're our eyes and ears within the Ministry." Malfoy gave a quiet nod, not entirely happy with the title since he wasn't technically with the Ministry any longer. He held no rank or position within the Ministry aside from paroled prisoner, but it would have to do for the moment. "Tell us, what information have you gathered for this weekend?"

Unaware that he was even supposed to be gathering information for the V.R.S., Lucius hesitated to collect his scattered thoughts. He cleared his throat and did all that he could to keep his voice from breaking. "Potter's wedding is this weekend, Saturday evening through Sunday night. The Ministry is providing a public reception, a celebration of sorts, for the entire weekend, however the private ceremony will take place Sunday morning at the Weasley residence. It's said to be the event of the ages, a celebration of peaceful times."

Crabbe chuckled, accompanied by a few scattered laughs throughout the room. "We all know that, Lucius. We were hoping you could enlighten us to the more intimate details of the arrangements. Security, checkpoints we'll have to maneuver around, any hidden risks that we might not ordinarily notice if we were to simply rush into an ambush." He lifted his open hand as if to coax more out of him, urging him to continue with the details they had requested instead of the common knowledge he had already provided.

A bead of sweat tickled at his temple, collecting discreetly along the edge of his long blonde locks before rolling down to disperse among the hairs, safely hidden from view. "Yes, of course." He replied, suddenly regretful that he hadn't arrived sooner. Perhaps then there would have been enough alcohol left to spare him some of the nerves that were racking through his body now. He swallowed down the bit of bile that threatened to creep up his throat again and began his lies. "I've been told from a reliable source within the Ministry as well as the Order, that the security at both the public reception and the private gathering will be completely impenetrable."

A few wizards chuckled again, seeing Lucius's warning as nothing more than a challenge posed to them. He needed to correct them, needed them to see how very wrong they were. "Among the many Order members and local aurors that will be attending for the festivities, I've received word that foreign aurors have also been summoned to provide an extra boost to their already staggeringly high numbers. We'll be outnumbered and overpowered before we even get close to anyone with even an ounce of importance to their name."

"That's not what I've heard." Someone interrupted. A short, balding man with disciplined eyes shook his head, glancing from Lucius to the group of three in the center of the room. "I've heard the opposite actually. Their top Aurors will all be at the event as guests, therefore leaving the less experienced, less challenging security personnel to guard the area. It'll be a walk in the park. We'll be catching them entirely off guard."

A handful of others agreed, mumbling their opinions about how easily they could take control of the entire area, even with the whole ministry and Order present. Lucius shook his head firmly. "You're wrong. Whoever you received that information from is trying to sabotage us, trying to lure us into a false sense of security." He looked away from the outspoken man, shifting instead to Crabbe, Yaxley, and Macnair. "I promise you, if we attempt an attack this weekend, the only thing we'll have to show for is for a pile of bodies, none of which theirs."

"You're just trying to protect them." A hateful voice shot at him. His eyes darted over to his son defensively as Draco continued, "You just don't want another attack at all."

"Did I say that, Draco? Keep your mouth shut and open your ears." Lucius scolded, rising from his chair until the young blonde wizard backed down, sinking against his chair with a defeated glare. Lucius turned instead to the men that mattered most, shifting his eyes from Crabbe, to Yaxley, Macnair, before finally settling on Crabbe. "Attack them all you want on Monday. Hell, attack them Sunday night when they're all fat, drunk, and sleeping for all I care! But I'm telling you, if we have a go at them at this wedding, we'll all be a mess of corpses just in time for the honeymoon." Lucius thrust his index finger downwards at the floor firmly, nailing his point to the ground where he stood.

The room fell silent, eyes climbing from Lucius to the group of leaders standing quietly together. Their exchanged glances spoke louder than their words and Lucius began to wonder just how far back this group of three had gone. They had all fought in the first Wizarding War. Perhaps their ties were formed back then, years ago, and left to strengthen and grow under the protection of Voldemort and his death eaters. Macnair and Yaxley had both been able to maneuver themselves into positions within the Ministry while Crabbe maintained his alliance with Voldemort, landing himself both in and out of Azkaban over the years.

Lucius stared at the three men he thought he had known for years, wondering if he ever actually knew them at all. Perhaps it had been the death of Crabbe's son that caused him to take such a bold stance with someone besides Voldemort. Yaxley and Macnair could have been there to collect the broken man after the war, to guide him to safety and hiding as he mourned the loss of his son, all the while rebuilding himself into the leader Lucius saw before him now. It all made sense, why Malfoy hadn't heard from any of them after their defeat during the war. True, he too had been in hiding, but he at least received word from other survivors on their side, others displaced and displeased with their situations after Voldemort's death. Yaxley, Crabbe, and Macnair had been busy planning, busy rebuilding the shattered community Voldemort had left behind, and eventually recruited for those that could help extract their own revenge on the Ministry and those that had cast them aside like society's waste.

Malfoy suddenly thought of the night he had first been approached after the war. Crabbe and Macnair had found him shortly after his agreed rehabilitation with the ministry. For all he knew, they could have thought he was dead before his rebirth into society, and that could have been why it took them so long to approach him with their proposal. _'This isn't the end for us, my friend.'_ They had said. _'We've got more work to do and we'd like to consider you a valuable piece to the puzzle. This life the ministry has given you... are you truly whole now? Do you want for nothing? Have they really given you back all that you've lost?'_ Even now, remembering their words, Lucius recalled how he had shook his head and angrily answered that Voldemort had already ruined his life once; he didn't need the Dark Lord ruining it again from beyond the veil. Macnair, as silent as he had always been, guided the conversation in a different direction with a few simple words. _'But your __**family**__, Lucius. Don't they deserve better than this?'_

They had known which buttons to press, which angles to take in order to recruit him back over to their side, and now as they stood quietly contemplating all that he had just told them, Macnair's dark eyes examined him with concern. "If this decision somehow backfires on us, Lucius," His voice was cold, coarse, and had all the signs of a threat without the familiar feel of a wand to the neck or the cruciatus curse shooting painfully through his veins. '_Another difference they held from Voldemort,_' Lucius noted. Macnair fixated on Draco, eyeing him much like a hyena yipped and drooled over its prey before sinking the wrath of the pack onto its delicate flesh, tearing it limb from limb. His eyes dragged back over to Lucius, a promise in them that cut right through to the bone. "I'll deliver your boy's head to you in a sack, do you understand?"

With a rise of fresh sickness slowly making its way up his stomach and into his throat, Lucius nodded his understanding, avoiding Draco's pale-faced stares. "I'm doing this _for_ my son, Macnair. If we go this weekend, my boy's as good as dead anyway."

The three wizards in the center of the room paused, considering one last time the plea Malfoy had presented to them. With one last look between them, Yaxley gave him a nod and announced to the rest of their followers, "We'll attack next week, when they're not expecting us. It'll give us more time to heal our wounded and reinforce our numbers. Lucius, you'll attend this weekend on our behalf and gather as much information as you can." Malfoy agreed, though how much he could gain from a group of people who hated him, even with a wedding taking place, he hadn't any idea. Crabbe clapped a hand on Malfoy's shoulder much like he had done earlier with his son, and provided the same words of praise. "Good man."

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><p>With the last few sips of alcohol completely gone and Yaxley disappearing almost immediately after the meeting had ended, Lucius left only shortly after. His intention had been to pull Draco aside, warn him to be careful what he says, and that he can't protect him if he's shooting off his mouth like he had done only moments ago, but Draco slipped out of the room just as quickly, hurrying to gather up a group to go loot some more booze before they would have a riot on their hands. <em>'Another time then,'<em> Lucius made a mental note and began his journey back to the Manor.

His stomach churned as he walked through the entrance hall of Malfoy Manor, still slightly unsettled after apparating the majority of the journey back home. With Draco still on his mind, as well as Yaxley, Crabbe, and Macnair, Lucius made his way to the library. If he knew Hermione at all, that was the first place she was bound to be found in his massive home.

The young witch was propped up on the sofa with an open book and a cup of tea. If he had been in a better mood, perhaps she would have appeared sweet, the nerdy little bookworm that he had fallen so hard for these past months. Exhausted from both the meeting itself and the journey back home, Lucius silently entered, passing the sofa as well as its occupant and planted himself down hard into his oversized desk chair. Closing his eyes and leaning his head against the back of the chair, he pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, trying to finally relax both his mind and his stomach.

Hermione closed her book and shifted on the sofa, turning around to face him as he sat silently behind her. After seeing no signs of speech coming anytime soon unless prompted, Hermione asked, "So... What happened? When are they going to attack?"

With his eyes still closed and his head still pressed against the chair, Lucius mocked weakly, "It looks like Potter will thankfully be able to marry in peace. Oh, sweet joy. The world has been spared of a ruined wedding!"

"You managed to convince them not to attack? That's wonderful!" Hermione replied cheerfully. "How did you do it? What did you say?"

Lucius rubbed at his temple as his seated position seemed to improve the sad state of his stomach. "I said that I would do it, and I have." His eyes flickered open to glance at her from beneath his hand before he pulled it down slowly, dragging it over the side of his face wearily. "But this is the last time I'll help the Order beyond the scope of just passing along information."

Hermione frowned, uncertain of what had changed his mind so suddenly. "What? You can't be serious. We haven't even done anything yet and you're already quitting?"

"_**We**_ haven't done anything, Miss Granger." Lucius corrected her, his tone balancing somewhere between contemptuous and chiding. "_**We**_didn't have to sit in a room filled with people both capable and willing to kill us, and lie straight to their face. Do you have any idea what I had to go through? And for what? So that the Order and your golden boy can have a proper celebration without anyone coming along and ruining all their fun?" Lucius shook his head and brought his hand back up to his face, rubbing at the temple again as her stares began to bother him more than he had initially thought they would. "If it rains, I suppose that would be my responsibility to fix it as well, wouldn't it?" He mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like '_sod the Order, the bastards_'.

"I didn't ask you to help so that the wedding wouldn't be _ruined_, Malfoy." Hermione spat back, standing from the sofa and marching over to the desk between them. "I asked you to help so that more people wouldn't die."

"_Your_ people. More of _your_ people." He corrected her forcefully, pulling his hand away from his face as it proved to do nothing for the rising headache that threatened to flatten him. "I won't be saving anyone who gives a damn about me, will I? My son won't be any safer by me helping the Ministry." Lucius pushed himself off the back of the chair, pulling himself forward to lean his arms against the desk's surface. "Go on, tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that by helping Potter and his precious Order, they'll all suddenly love me. I'll gain their praise and their trust, earn their forgiveness and my freedom. Go on, tell me that much, then tell me they'll do the same for my boy." He paused, pulling himself back against the chair and shaking his head. "You can't, can you? So then what am I risking my neck for?"

Hermione's frown deepened as she saw the desperation mix with a coldness in his eyes. Something had shook him, weakening all the good she had done only hours before. She had to remind him of the good he still had in him, even if he couldn't see it himself. "Because it's the right thing to do."

"Right for who?" Lucius replied with a laugh.

"Right for you, and for me. Right for anyone who just wants peace and an end to all this fighting. Haven't we had enough war for one lifetime?" Hermione pressed her palms down onto the desk, her refusal to give up as visible in her stance as it was in her words.

His eyes squeezed closed again as he let out a frustrated groan. She wasn't understanding, wasn't getting what he was trying to tell her. "I can't keep doing it." Lucius admitted. As much as he hated showing weakness, it seemed to be the only thing that might make her understand. "I can't handle it, the stress and the," He paused, hating the word before it even left his lips. "the fear. I can't do it anymore. I barely made it out of there today. What's to say I don't lose my composure next time? Or the time after that?" He shook his head, defeated and ashamed. "I'm as good as dead if they find out I'm helping the Order."

Hermione searched her mind for anything she could use to counteract his concerns, but she came up empty. All in all, he was right. She _was_ asking him to risk his life, there was no doubt about that. And as much as she hoped it didn't happen, the chance of him being found out and murdered for aiding the light side was inevitably undeniable, no matter what she tried to tell herself. She drew in a breath and tried the only thing she could think of. "Professor Snape was in the same position for years. He did what he could to help us, and now he'll be a hero forever. Countless young witches and wizards will read about him in their textbooks decades from now, knowing him to be the man who quite possibly sacrificed the most to help fight against Voldemort. He took the same risks. You knew him, knew how intelligent he was. If he thought the reasons for helping the Order were good enough then, what makes them so wrong now?"

"I'm not Severus." Lucius answered flatly.

He was right, but no matter how right he was, it wouldn't change the fact that she wanted a different answer. "You've made your decision then?" She asked, drawing her hands away from his desk to rest at her hips. Lucius nodded silently. "So I suppose that means you're satisfied with ending whatever it is that's been going on between us." She stated, crossing her arms over her chest defensively as he began to object to her assumption. She stopped him. "What do you suppose we would do, Lucius? Spend time together, have dinner in secret, and then part ways to go fight against each other? It doesn't work like that. It _can't_ work like that, no matter how hard you want it to. You may be able to switch your morals off and on at will, but I can't and I won't."

Malfoy groaned in frustration. She knew exactly how to exhaust him, and knew even better how to draw him back in. "You're blowing this out of proportion. I'm already passing along as much information as I can get for the Order. I can't do any more than what I've already done."

Hermione stepped away from the desk. "Then you won't hold it against me when you don't see me again." She walked towards the door, twisting the knob and pushing it open with a faint _click _before turning back to face him one last time. "I thought you had changed, Lucius. You really had me fooled. Let me know when you're certain which side you're truly on. I can't share my time nor my bed with someone who doesn't also share my morals. You may be able to lie to yourself, but I can't."

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><p><strong><em>ANs: My favorite things to write besides the obvious LM/HG scenes, are most definitely the scenes between the various death eaters that our Queen, J.K. Rowling has already so creatively invented. If you're at all like me, it's incredibly hard to avoid reading all the seemingly minor characters' background stories and information from sites like the HP-wiki pages and various HP related sites. As much as I wanted to throw a few other characters into this story, (I REALLY wanted to incorporate Barty Crouch Jr in here somewhere, but it simply could not be done this time around) it's important for me to maintain some sense of loyalty to the original story in regards to who's been killed, who's still alive but incapacitated, and who's fate was left unknown. I'm not a fan of creating characters who weren't originally in the books or films, so creating a whole new Dark Wizard to replace Voldemort just wasn't ever planned for this story._**

**_I hope this sort of 'big reveal' doesn't disappoint too many of you. In my mind, using these three in replace of one single witch or wizard to lead the V.R.S. actually may make it harder to take them down, for reasons that will be explained later on. So no worries, the story must and will go on! Will Lucius finally live up to Hermione's expectations or will Hermione learn to live with his insecurities and flaws, as disheartening as they may be? And my gosh, THE WEDDING! Will it be something comparable to George R.R. Martin's 'Red Wedding' or will it be the event of the ages as everyone hopes? :) Next chapter will hopefully be posted in a semi-timely manner. I know I have a horrible track record already, but I'd like to thank everyone who's still sticking with this story despite my lack of stability. You're all absolutely wonderful. 3_**

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><p><strong><em>CHAPTER RECAP:<em>**

**_Lucius has traveled to the old farmhouse that Draco, his wife, and a number of death eaters have been using as a safe house. In preparation for Harry and Ginny's wedding set for this weekend, a meeting has been organized among some of the more important members of the V.R.S. including but not limited to Crabbe, Macnair, Lestrange, Dolohov, and Draco. Lucius's nerves begin to overwhelm him as he realizes that it's now his job to not only help the Order by passing along valuable information to Hermione, but it's also his responsibility to somehow convince the V.R.S. not to attack Potter's wedding. He'll need to lie to them, essentially risking his life and perhaps even the life of his son in the process._**

**_To his surprise, Yaxley arrives to attend the meeting, but as they both return to the room and the meeting begins, Lucius quickly realizes who exactly has been running this group of dark witches and wizards. Crabbe, Macnair, and Yaxley conduct the meeting, offering praise and thanks to a few of their loyal followers, as well as Draco, but Lucius sees through their actions. While Voldemort gained their support and their loyalty through fear and the constant looming risk of punishment and torture, Crabbe, Yaxley, and Macnair take an entirely different approach by filling their followers with pride and hope, congratulating their accomplishments and placing trust in their members to not only conduct attacks and raids, but to also recruit new followers to build their numbers._**

**_Rodolphus Lestrange informs Lucius that his brother, Rabastan Lestrange was among those which they freed from Azkaban not too long ago, but that he is severely injured.  
><em>**

**_During the meeting, the topic shifts to Lucius as he is asked what he knows about the wedding. He doesn't know anything beyond the obvious, and when pressed for more detailed information, he lies and says that the security that will be present is far beyond what they can handle. He says foreign Aurors have been called to attend, as well as the local Aurors and Ministry officials who will be present as guests. It will be too risky to attack, he says, but someone else disagrees, stating that the guests will be distracted and easy to overpower. Lucius presses his point, knowing it is a lie or at least unfounded by any source, and as a result of this dispute, Macnair threatens to kill Draco if Lucius is proven to be wrong. Lucius understands and the leaders of the V.R.S., Crabbe, Yaxley, and Macnair agree not to conduct an attack at the wedding. Instead, they will wait a week for their wounded followers to heal, and to gain more followers. Then they will attack._**

**_The meeting ends, Yaxley leaves immediately, and Draco disappears to go participate in a raid of a local village to retrieve more alcohol for the group of death eaters staying at the farmhouse. Lucius returns back to the manor, exhausted and still feeling unnerved about having to lie and risk his and his son's life, all for the Order. Hermione asks him how the meeting went and after being told that the wedding will be safe from any attacks, thanks to his lies at the meeting, Lucius also tells her that he will not be helping the Order in that way ever again. He states that it's not worth risking his life or his son's life for people who haven't and won't ever do the same for him. They won't ever show him praise or grant him the absolute freedom he desires, and it's not worth the stress and fear that he put himself in at the meeting._**

**_Hermione tries to convince him otherwise, using Severus as a motivating factor, stating that he went through the same stresses and that now he's regarded as a hero. Lucius says he is not Severus, shutting down her argument coldly as he grows tired of her efforts to regain his help for the Order. He suggests she drop it and when he does, Hermione suggests they end their relationship, in whatever capacity they've been having it up to that point. Lucius tries to say that's not what he wants, but Hermione states that no matter how much he wants to think it can work between them if they're on opposite sides, it can't. He may be able to set his morals aside, but she can't. Hermione leaves, but not before telling him,_**

_**"I thought you had changed, Lucius. You really had me fooled. Let me know when you're certain which side you're truly on. I can't share my time nor my bed with someone who doesn't also share my morals. You may be able to lie to yourself, but I can't."**_

_**-End of Chapter Recap-**_


	35. Chapter 34

_**Author's Notes: My apologizes for how long this chapter is. I didn't want to entirely skip over the wedding since I pictured it being a really fun sort of ocassion, but I believe it did make this chapter quite a bit longer than I would have liked. Either way, at least this chapter didn't take half a year to get up, right? :) Reviews are always appreciated! Enjoy! ;)**_

_**Warnings: This chapter contains sexual content. Smut ahead! You've been warned! **_

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><p>"How was the library?" Mrs. Weasley asked as she spotted the front door open.<p>

Hermione hesitated. She had just walked through the door to the Burrow and already, all eyes were on her. She had no time to relax. Harry was bound to step through the door right after her, as well as Mr. Weasley now that the working day had ended. Ginny smiled at her from the kitchen as she helped her mother prepare what was sure to be more food for the wedding. She would need to put on a face much like Lucius had done at the meeting, and lie. "It was good. I got a lot of studying done."

"That's wonderful, dear!" Molly replied cheerfully, though her voice held a tension, perhaps from all the stress from the wedding planning, that let Hermione know this was the end of her motherly questioning.

Thankful for the lack of an interrogation, especially after the falling out she just had with Lucius, Hermione began to climb the stairs when Mrs. Weasley drew her back down. "There's dinner in the kitchen here whenever you're ready. The boys will be running a little late, so tonight's meal will be a bit informal."

"Oh, that's okay, Mrs. Weasley. I'm actually really tired. I think I'll just turn in early and get some rest before the wedding. I'm sure no matter how beautiful my bridesmaid's dress is, it won't make these tired eyes look any less awful." She smiled playfully and Mrs. Weasley gave her an approving wave to go rest.

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><p>In an effort to keep her mind busy and off the topic of Malfoy, Hermione spent the next couple days surrounding herself with everything wedding related. She helped prepare and pack away the food Mrs. Weasley had been working so hard on for what seemed like a week. The decorations were checked and double checked as the weekend grew closer with every passing hour. Not surprisingly, though certainly not planned, Ginny had the inevitable break down on Friday night, suddenly realizing that the biggest event of her lifetime was set to happen only a few hours away, and was panicked that something would go horribly wrong.<p>

"The forecast says clear skies all weekend. There's nothing to worry about, Ginny. Everything will go perfectly, you'll see." Hermione tried to comfort her, wrapping the younger witch into a cozy hug and passing her their shared tub of muggle mint chocolate chip ice cream. It would be a long night.

xxx

The morning was a hurried, chaotic mess with Mrs. Weasley running from room to room, trying to collect everything they would need for the weekend. Ginny and Fleur were in the kitchen, gathering the last few dishes of food to transport to the reception. The men in the family had already left first thing in the morning to make sure everything was going smoothly with the setup and on-sight details. Through listening to Ginny's many concerns last night, Hermione had learned that the ministry's public event was to be held at Hogwarts of all places. It was big enough to satisfy the no doubt many guests that would attend, and proved to be an important location in regards to the current struggle against the VRS. The castle had been nearly destroyed in many areas from Voldemort's final battle. Now that it had been rebuilt and restored to its former glory, to use it for such a momentous occasion would prove to be the optimistic uplifting statement that everyone so desperately needed.

She was lying if she said she wasn't nervous. The odds of the old castle not bringing back harsh memories of the war and the final battle was slim to none, but she knew she couldn't let that stop her from going to support Harry and Ginny on their special day. She wasn't the same witch she was months ago, cowering and scared in her parent's muggle home, denying herself the magical world all in a misguided attempt to keep the fear that haunted her at bay. If anything, all her hiding away and seclusion did was give her even more fear to fret over.

As she entered the kitchen and helped Ginny and Fleur with the last few dishes, Hermione lifted her chin and took in a deep breath. She would never be that scared little wreck of a witch ever again, she would make certain of it.

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><p>By noon, the castle was a flutter of finely dressed wizards and beautifully gowned witches, all in good spirits and finalizing the last few arrangements for the evening. The doors would open promptly at 5 o'clock, though a line had already begun to form outside the castle's massive enchanted doors. Ginny, Hermione, and the bride's party had disappeared to dress, primp, and make themselves up perfectly for the night. Ginny's dress, though not a traditional wedding dress in truth, was breathtaking. A soft cream color, it held accents of rich red tones, and flowed all the way down to the floor with a short train behind her. Harry's dress robes were said to match in color and style, minus the feminine flares that Ginny's dress held.<p>

Hermione's dress was shorter, ending just above her knees, but shared the same color scheme as Ginny's. They all wore simple gold necklaces and bracelets to compliment the crimson fabrics, an obvious ode to their Gryffindor colors in full. Hermione's long chocolate hair was pulled up and contained in an elegantly dignified loose bun, a few stray locks hanging carefully at the sides to frame her face just right. She felt beautiful.

* * *

><p>By six o'clock, the castle was flooded with visitors. The Great Hall was filled to full capacity and had overflown into the hallways with guests as they sipped their complimentary drinks and mingled cheerily with one another. When the time had come for Ginny and Harry to make their entrance, everyone took their places at the head table, Hermione and the Weasleys standing from their chairs with their eyes set to the doorway.<p>

The crowd fell silent in awe as the couple of honor stood together with their matching outfits, arms intertwined and nervous smiles on their faces. It was one thing to be the chosen one and save the world from Voldemort, but to see so many people staring at them as they walked down the long hall was beyond nerve-wrecking. They stepped up to the podium where the great Albus Dumbledore had stood for so many years and looked out at the crowd filling the large castle's hall. The sight of the boy who lived standing tall behind the school's podium sprinkled a heavy glimmer of hope over the room and nearby hallways.

With blushed cheeks and a practiced tone, Harry thanked everyone for attending. "This means a lot to us, to see so many of you here today. But this isn't just for us. It's for everyone." He stopped, scanning over the room before interlocking fingers with his bride-to-be. "Tonight is a remembrance of those braver than us, those who we've lost. But it's also a celebration. A celebration of everything they fought for, and died for. Without all of them, we wouldn't be standing where we are today and though a wedding is always a great reason to get together and throw a party, it's only a small part of what today stands for. Thank you." Suddenly bashful, as he'd never truly been comfortable with large crowds and so much attention, despite being the boy who lived, Harry and Ginny gave a courteous bow, thanked the crowd of adoring faces again, and took their seats at the main table up on the landing at the head of the room.

"You guys did great," Hermione smiled at them as they sat down a few seats away at the center of the long table. Ron's seat was beside Harry's and Hermione's was placed next to Ron's. On Ginny's side, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley beamed proudly at their only daughter. Mrs. Weasley had started crying early on as they entered the Great Hall together, but if her determined sniffling was a sign of anything, she would hopefully regain her composure before the food was served.

"Thanks." Harry grinned back at Hermione, nodding at everyone sitting around him. "This is incredible. I can't believe how massive this turned out to be."

"You're a hero, mate. Of course they're gonna make it big." Ron laughed and nudged Harry's shoulder with his. "Gotta make it grand for the 'Chosen One', you know?"

Harry laughed and pushed him back with his arm. "Yeah, yeah."

The chatter quieted down quickly as Kingsley stepped up to the podium. His smooth voice rang through the hall, drawing in the attention of the flood of people sitting at the various tables scattered around the room. The four long Hogwarts house tables had been removed, instantly opening up the free space and expanding the overall feel of the area. Smaller round tables had been placed around the large dance floor in the center of the hall for guests to sit while they ate, though the majority of visitors remained standing, peering up at the Minister of Magic behind the podium.

"Good evening and thank you for the wonderful turn out. I'll keep this short so we can get to the good part: The food!" Everyone laughed while a few cheers could be heard from the back of the room. Hermione smiled and tried to see who had made the noise, convinced it had sounded like a few of her fellow Gryffindors, but the lights shining up at them since Harry and Ginny's arrival blinded them of the sea of people in front of the head table. Kingsley continued. "Through the generosity of the Ministry, it gives me great pleasure to be able to welcome you all to this joyous event and to congratulate Mr. and Mrs. Potter on their beautiful union. I'm sure you'll both have a magnificent life together." With his final words, Kingsley raised his glass to a toast and the whole room followed. "To peace and good fortune."

As the toast rang throughout the great hall and out into the hallways, an enormous array of food appeared around the edges of the room. Witches and wizards by the buffet tables began to form a line, picking up their plates and sampling the incredible selection in front of them. As if exactly on cue, the music rose, lifting another group of guests to their feet and carrying them to the dance floor. The party had finally begun, after all the planning and stress everyone had gone through over the past few weeks. It had all gone off without a hitch and as Hermione looked down the table at the guests of honor, she saw Harry get to his feet and offer his hand to his bride sweetly. With a blush and an ecstatic nod, Ginny took his hand and walked down to the dance floor with him.

It was beautiful. Hermione smiled as she watched them dancing until they eventually blended in with the rest of the happy couples twirling and swaying to the music together. "I'm going to get some food, 'Mione Do you want me to get you a plate?" Ron asked, standing from his seat beside her.

Her eyes slipped away from the dance floor, drawing up to his as she wondered if Ron would dance with her. A passing thought at best, and a foolish one at that, Hermione brushed it aside and shook her head. "No, I think I'll go mingle for a little while. I thought I saw Luna when we came in."

Appearing torn between his stomach and his heart, Ron hesitated by her chair. "Oh, we can do that first if you want." He sounded disappointed but didn't want to leave her almost as much as he wanted to try every food available.

"Go get something to eat, Ron. I can manage without you for half an hour, honestly." Her tone was more humorous than harsh, but if he expected to spend the entire weekend right beside her, she was bound to go insane.

"Okay. I'll meet you back here in half an hour." Ron agreed with a smile.

Hermione resisted a groan. "Maybe. I might be dancing, Ron. I don't know. I'll see you later sometime, okay? Maybe Parvati is here. You should go find her and ask her to dance."

"Why would I want to-," Ron began to ask, a confused frown creasing over his brows, but Hermione was already standing from her seat.

"Just go have some fun. Don't worry about me." She insisted before quickly making her way away from the head table down to the sea of guests below. After a moment or two of aimlessly wandering around the tables, greeting various friendly faces, and trying to remember everyone's name, Hermione finally spotted Luna. She was sitting at a table with Neville, her father, and his Gran.

Dean Thomas was walking back with a plate filled to the brim with all sorts of foods when he noticed her. "Hey Hermione! Great party, right?" He was like a kid on Christmas morning, always so enthusiastic and in the now.

It made her smile. "It's wonderful!" She exclaimed and walked back to the table with him as he took a seat across from Luna. "So this must be where all the cheering had come from." Hermione announced happily.

Neville and Luna stood to greet her, shaking hands and pulling each other into warm hugs as if they had never left Hogwarts. For a moment, she felt like she was back in the castle not as a guest but as a student, surrounded by her friends and never wanting the school year to end. "It's been so long!" Neville said, pulling her into a hug as Luna finished her embrace with Hermione.

"I can't believe it's been years. It feels like just yesterday we were all sitting in here, eating dinner and listening to Professor Dumbledore's evening speech." Her smile faded as her words sunk in, the abrupt remembrance that their late Professor would never speak to them again, never look down at them through his half-moon glasses, or stand behind the large wooden podium still sitting up at the front of the room. Hermione fell silent.

"He was a great man." Dean offered proudly, breaking the silence, and they all agreed solemnly.

"But this is exciting," Luna replied. "All of us here together. I didn't think I would be back here again."

Neville shook his head. "Me neither. It's a bit eerie, isn't it?" He looked around and although all the mess had been thoroughly cleaned and all evidence of the battle erased, Hermione could tell he was still seeing it clearly. Her eyes followed his down to the floor and realized this was where the bodies of their dead had been laid before being put to rest. His lips twisted into a pout as his brows shrunk down over his eyes. Hermione watched him, recognizing the pained look in his eyes and the distant stare he held on the cold stone of the castle's floor by their table. He was going through what she had been struggling with for the past few years, the difficult task of looking past their losses and moving forward proved to be harder than expected.

Hermione reached for his hand slowly, careful not to startle him with the sudden touch. "Neville," She called softly. "Do you want to dance?"

He blinked firmly, dragging his eyes away from the floor to look at her. The difference in him faded and Hermione knew if he had been having a flashback of sorts, it must have ended. Neville apologized but agreed, taking her hand and following her onto the dance floor. As the song picked up, a cheery beat with a quick rhythm, he apologized again. Hermione stopped him. "It's okay, Neville. I know exactly what you're going through."

Somehow he doubted her. He shrugged and spun her around in a circle, mimicking a pair of dancers a few feet away. "Everyone else has been able to just pick up where they left off before the war but it's just been hard sometimes."

Hermione nodded and raised her eyebrows, giving him a genuine look of understanding. "I know." She agreed. "But you should talk about it. It'll help." The beat slowed and Hermione copied Neville's move, spinning him in place as he had done with her, making them both laugh at the awkward height difference presented to them with the reversed roles.

"I don't want Gran to worry. It'll kill her if she knew how hard it's been for me."

"She's probably already noticed, Neville. If you can't talk to her, at least talk to Luna." The song ended, changing instead to a slower tune. Hermione shrugged with a smile. "You never know. She might be going through the same thing."

Neville looked back at Luna, who gave them a warm wave from their table. "You think so? I thought it was just me."

"That's what I thought too." Hermione agreed and patted him on the shoulder as they walked back to the table from the dance floor.

"Thanks, Hermione." He beamed, looking happier already.

* * *

><p>Before long, an hour had passed and though she stopped to grab a quick drink once or twice, Hermione had danced her way around the dance floor. Neville asked Luna to dance once he and Hermione had returned to the table. As if that first dance had sparked a fire underneath the rest of the table, Dean followed suit, pulling Hermione onto the dance floor and spending three songs with his fellow Gryffindor before switching up partners for a cute little Hufflepuff he had been eyeing for most of the night. Hermione laughed and wished him good luck, warning him not to step on her toes like he had done to her once or twice.<p>

As the night wore on and her dance partners continued to shift in and out, Hermione truly felt as if she hadn't ever left Hogwarts. A boy she recognized from the Ravenclaw house approached her midway through her dance with Luna, cutting in and smiling proudly when Hermione agreed to share a song or two with him. After what seemed like hours, Hermione finally dragged herself back to the head table, promising a young first year Gryffindor as well as Professor Flitwick a dance as soon as she got some food into her stomach. She laughed as her former Professor took over the dance floor, shaking his left foot out before switching to his right. He seemed to be swimming in as many dance partners as she had gone through and was still going strong. She shook her head with a chuckle as she blooped down, exhausted in her chair beside Ron. "Where's Parvati?"

Ron shrugged. "I don't know."

Hermione sighed. "Have you been sitting here the whole time?" Ron shrugged again, mumbling something about having two left feet. "Suit yourself. I'm having a blast. You should loosen up. I doubt we'll ever see a wedding like this again."

"It's been alright," Ron replied, dipping his fork into the smashed pile of mashed potatoes he had left on his plate. "The pudding was pretty good." He added enthusiasticly.

Hermione laughed. "I'll be sure to try it. Look, I think I see Parvati over by that corner. Let's go see how she's been." She tried again. '_Anything to get him up and dancing instead of just sitting here all night, waiting for me,'_ Hermione thought.

"What's _he_ doing here?" Ron suddenly perked up, dropping his fork against his plate with a loud clank.

Following his eyes to the source of the problem, Hermione realized who had caught his attention. Walking through the Great Hall doorway, in a perfectly tailored, spotless pair of dress robes, and his hair pulled back handsomely with a thin black ribbon was Lucius Malfoy. For a moment, she lost her breath. With how much fun she had been having all night, the thought of Lucius had completely slipped her mind. Now, as he entered the hall, even more striking than she remembered, it threw her off guard.

He stepped forward and as Hermione watched from her seat at the head table, a woman stepped up beside him, her arm looping through his. Hermione's heart sank. Lucius turned to the woman and leaned in towards her ear. When he pulled away, straightening back up with a wicked smirk, the woman giggled and batted at his arm playfully as if he had said something inappropriate yet witty and alluring. Hermione didn't doubt her assumption; his quick tongue and sharp remarks were only a couple of the many things that had drawn her to him months ago. Now, this woman clung to his arm as if she would surely not survive the journey to their table without him and it made Hermione's stomach twist unpleasantly. They walked towards one of the empty tables by the dance floor's edge and Hermione looked away. She had seen enough, closing her eyes as she felt a thin layer of tears begin to form beneath the lids. _'You left him, so why are you the one crying? Grow up, Hermione,'_ she scolded herself silently, wiping her hand quickly over her eyes and drawing in a deep breath to clear her throat of the lump that had collected tightly like a knot. Her jaw stiffened as her eyes trailed back down to them jealously. "It's a public event. Everyone's invited," She reminded Ron, trying to keep any ounce of caring off her voice.

"Yeah well someone should have specified; Death Eaters need not attend." Ron shook his head angrily. "I wonder if Harry knows he's here. It's his party. He can tell him to leave."

Hermione stood from her chair, spotting Lucius doing the same. He was heading towards one of the buffet tables. "I'm going to go check on that pudding." She stated quickly, pushing her chair out of the way as she walked back down from the head table to the cluster of smaller tables along side the dance floor. She took the path opposite Lucius, rounding a chair to her left and dodging past a couple dancing off to her right. He had already reached the buffet tables but had passed them completely, going instead for the large bowl of party punch surrounded by spare glasses. He grabbed two glasses and began filling them when she approached. She took a glass for herself and filled it with the punch. "I didn't think you would come." Her tone was steady, refusing to let any of her emotions slip out between the words.

"Miss me already?" Lucius asked sarcastically with a smirk before replying with a less enthusiastic reply. "Duties are duties. I was obligated to attend."

"Which duties would those be?" Hermione asked halfheartedly, knowing his rehabilitation and the probation program with the ministry wouldn't have required him to attend, though it wouldn't hurt either. "Nevermind, I don't want to know." Hermione corrected. Lucius took a sip from his drink, leaving the second glass in his left hand untouched. Hermione motioned towards it. "I didn't realize a date was required to fulfill your responsibilities for the evening."

Lucius paused and looked down at the drink he had retrieved for his companion. "I've heard events like this are more entertaining with company as oppose to attending alone." Shooting a quick glance at the head table, he locked eyes with Ron, convinced that the red-head would come storming over any minute. Malfoy gave him a brief grin for kicks, ignoring the way the young man's mouth grumbled and twisted with whatever obscenities he had coaxed out of him. "You obviously agree," Lucius added, abandoning his fun at taunting Ron and turning back to Hermione. "I'm surprised he hasn't marched over here by now and demanded I leave the premises."

Hermione caught on quickly to what he meant. "You mean Ron?" She looked back at the table and spotted him still fuming at Lucius from across the room. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she turned back to the punch bar and shook her head firmly. "He's not my date."

Lucius chuckled. "You should tell him that. He obviously thinks otherwise."

"I have," Hermione insisted before shaking her head again, a mixture of embarrassment and frustration flushing pink in her cheeks. "He's just determined I suppose."

With an understanding nod, Malfoy hesitated. He knew he should leave it at that, take his drinks back to his date and try to ignore the resentment and jealousy that had been building inside him since he arrived. Surely some other young wizard had stepped forward and took his place, a rebound date for the weekend. His eyes began to wander around the room, wondering who she had chosen to replace him. Curiosity got the better of him, cocking an eyebrow upwards as he asked bluntly, "Some other suitor for the evening then? Lucky man."

Hermione shook her head and corrected him. "I came alone."

Lucius lifted his drinks, intending to leave with a polite beg of pardon and his usual confident smile, but as her answer sunk in, he paused to reevaluate his options. With his voice deepened and his eyes shifting around the room, Lucius leaned in and stated forwardly, "I would ask for a dance but I understand there are more reasons to refuse my request than to accept it." He could smell the sweetness of her hair and the warmth at their sudden closeness. It was magnetic, drawing him in closer until his lips were a breath's length from her ear. She could feel him against the side of her face, his presence gently tickling at the few loose curls hanging down against her neck weightlessly. She wanted to give in to it, lean in against him and feel his arms wrap around her as he had done in the past. He felt safe and secure, protective and possessive in all the right ways, but just as her mind began to clear, reminded painfully of his chosen alliances, she felt him pull away from her. Forcing himself to straightening back up and take another sip from his drink, Lucius added ingenuously. "Perhaps, someday after this mess of a war is over, I can have that dance."

He was a perfect gentleman in every way, and in that moment, she hated him for it. He had every inclination to reach out and take her; she could see it in his eyes and the way the muscles of his jaw kept tensing impatiently as he looked her over. To hell with where they were and who was there to see them. She could tell he had put on his full charm for the evening, if not to impress her, than at the very least to make her regret letting go of him. But she had given him her severance a few nights past and regret it or not, the gentleman in him would uphold her wishes whether she liked it or not. Hermione swore internally and agreed, "Someday."

Lucius rose his glass with a smirk as if to toast. "To peaceful times then."

Returning the smile and raising her own glass, Hermione repeated, "To peaceful times, Lucius."

His name on her voice made it harder to maintain the nonchalant mask he'd been wearing up until then, as if their falling out hadn't bothered him these past few days. She hadn't contacted him at all and although he knew she must have been busy with the wedding planning, it still irked him to know there was a possibility that he wasn't even on her mind. She had most certainly been on his. Lucius's smirk faded as he realized it was customarily the time in which their friendly exchange would normally end for the evening. He was supposed to wish her well and be on his way, taking his drinks back to his date and forgetting all about the muggle-born witch for the rest of the night. But his feet felt like blocks, insisting that he stay just a little longer. His eyes roamed over her face and as they fell to her lips, he wanted to taste her. Her hair was perfectly styled, her dress complimented the slight blush to her cheeks and the sweet crimson of her lips. She looked enchanting, but as his eyes pulled away from her and reminded him of where they were, he knew his desires would need to stay contained to simply thoughts, nothing more.

_'She may not even want my kiss anymore,'_ he considered with uncertainty. His recent decision had upset her nights ago and although there was the chance that she had reconsidered or softened in her stance, he had no prove of it. Meeting somewhere in the middle, Lucius took her hand gently in his and kissed the back of it, lingering just a second longer than necessary to catch her familiar scent and the warmth of her skin against his. He straightened back up, raising his eyes to meet hers, and reluctantly gave her back her hand. His resentment at their intentional distance and the regret he felt was as clear as day, but he held face considering their surroundings and kept his true thoughts to himself. With a slightly weaker smile than before, Lucius wished her well. "Have a pleasant evening, Miss Granger." With his drinks in his hands, he gave her a small nod and went back to his table to attend to his date.

Grudgingly, Hermione followed suit and returned to her seat at the head table. Ron was still glaring at Lucius when she sat back down with her drink and a plate of food. "What did Malfoy want?" Ron asked.

"Nothing. He just commented on the decorations, said they looked nice." Hermione lied, digging her fork into the pasta dish on her plate.

"Well I hope he enjoyed them because he won't be here to see them much longer." Ron replied purposefully, rising from his seat just in time for Hermione to grab his arm.

"Sit down. You're not going to start a fight at your own sister's wedding reception!"

After finishing her food and encountering another failed attempt at getting Ron to go find a suitable date for the evening, Hermione gave up and returned to the dance floor for a much needed distraction. Though she wouldn't admit it freely, her eyes had roamed back down to Lucius and his date far more often than she had liked in the short while she sat with Ron at the head table. At least from the angle of the dance floor, she could assume the crowd of guests would create more of a barrier between the blonde wizard and herself.

Flitwick had finally taken a much needed break to catch his breath, but promise Hermione they would cut loose on the dance floor again later. Just as before, her options for dance partners was anything but limited. More Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and even a handful of Slytherins asked for a song or two over the course of the next hour. Happily accepting them all, Hermione found herself finally able to ignore Malfoy at least for the moment.

As an upbeat, quick-paced song ended and a slightly slower one began, Hermione smiled at the sight of Harry and Ginny taking to the floor for the more intimate dance. Politely postponing the request she received from a tall, dark haired Hufflepuff graduate, Hermione left the floor to grab a glass of party punch. She watched as the occupants of the floor swayed and turned together, uniform in their form yet individual in their own specific movements and timings.

With a subconscious glance to the side of the dance floor, Hermione caught sight of Lucius's table. It was empty. _'Has he left already?'_ she wondered quietly, relieved that she wouldn't have to keep her guard up so sternly over her heart for the rest of the evening, but before she could breath freely, her mind wandered to darker thoughts. If he had left, where was his date? Surely she wouldn't remain without him, as rude as it would be for him to leave without escorting her home, unless they weren't going home. Hermione frowned, clutching her glass of punch while her jealousy grew. _'He's entitled to take home whomever he pleases. He's single. If he wants to take home some random witch he probably doesn't even know and do who knows what with her, that's his own business.'_ She tried to convince herself firmly. _'I can do the same if I'd like,'_ Hermione thought bitterly, contemplating for half a second if she would ever truly behave so freely as to take home a stranger.

Before she could fully admit to whether or not she would go through with a decision so unlike herself, his bright blonde hair caught her attention from across the large room. Against the wall furthest to the left, Lucius was standing beside Kingsley, his date no where to be found. Hermione scanned over the area quickly but she couldn't see the woman anywhere. Curiously, she watched as the two wizards talked privately. If Lucius hadn't been facing away from her, perhaps she could stand a chance at reading his lips, but with only the back of his head to guide her, their conversation was lost to her.

Kingsley gave Lucius a stern nod and took his hand, shaking it firmly for a moment before walking towards the dance floor, leaving Lucius behind. The song ended, giving Kingsley the opportunity to cut in, meeting Harry and Ginny at the edge of the dance floor as they walked back to go mingle. More words were exchanged before Ginny left them to discuss on their own. No matter how hard she tried, Hermione couldn't make out what was being said but as luck would have it, Ginny had spotted her staring and walked over to her.

"You look like you've been having fun. How long were you dancing for?" The younger witch asked, pouring a ladle of punch into a glass for herself.

"It's been lots of fun actually," Hermione agreed. "Everyone seems to be having a really great time."

Ginny laughed lightly. "I would hope so, after all the trouble the ministry and everyone's gone to, getting this place ready and everything."

Taking the opportunity as soon as she could, Hermione asked, "Speaking of the ministry, where's Kingsley? I haven't seen him since he made his speech at the start of the night." Hermione lied, but she couldn't come right out and just ask her what they were talking about without seeming suspicious or at the very least, rudely nosy.

Ginny took the bait. "He's talking to Harry now," She gestured towards them and took another sip from her drink. "Apparently Malfoy's asked to speak with them about something."

"Now? In the middle of the party?" Hermione glanced back at Lucius in disbelief.

"No," Ginny confirmed her doubt. "But the way Kingsley was making it sound, I doubt we'll be able to spend the entire honeymoon without Harry having to go to the ministry now."

Confused, Hermione looked back at Ginny. "What do you mean?"

Ginny shrugged. "It seemed really important that they having this meeting with Malfoy as soon as possible. Obviously this weekend isn't an option because of the wedding and everything, but I'm sure Kingsley will convince Harry to drop by the office on Monday." She sounded slightly disappointed, though she knew as much of a workaholic as Harry had been before the wedding, the odds of him changing after the wedding were slim to none.

"Do you know what it's about?" Hermione questioned, trying to keep the interest in his tone to a minimum.

With a small shake of her head, Ginny replied, "I didn't hear. Knowing Malfoy though, it's probably just a complaint about his probation terms or something. You'd think he would just be thankful that he's not in Azkaban."

Hermione's eyes fixed back on Lucius. He had found her, spotted her among the crowd of guests and held her stare for as long as she would return it. "What a tosser." Hermione responded dully before Ginny finished her glass of punch and excused herself to go greet some guests that had just arrived.

Their stare broke as Hermione said goodbye to Ginny, but as her eyes lifted back to the spot across the room where Lucius had been standing, Hermione quickly realized he was gone. With a quick glance up at the head table, she spotted Ron. His mother had returned to the table to scold him for being such a stubborn party-pooper, trying to coax him out of his chair to go mingle with the rest of the guests. He was distracted, it was her only chance to slip away unnoticed. Hermione set down her glass of punch and made her way out of the Great Hall.

The hallways were just as flooded with people as the dinning hall had been, if not more so due to the lack of tables. She skimmed over the faces, trying to spot his familiar pale hair or those crystal blue eyes, but he was no where to be found. The frustrated witch swore under her breath and continued down the hallway aimlessly searching. As she passed through the crowd, more than once she was stopped by various witches and wizards, past professors who wished to say hello or shoot the breeze and reunite after the years apart. Politely, Hermione greeted them all accordingly but hurried to dismiss any long-winded conversations. When in doubt, claiming to need to use the loo had come in handy with a particularly chatty elderly witch.

Escaping another pair of witches who stopped her to discuss the details of the private wedding, Hermione suppressed a groan. _'He's bound to be gone by now,'_ she paused by the bottom of the grand staircase leading up to the castle's many different floors. They twisted and curved wildly, even shifting in place from landing to landing at will. When all hope had seemed to be lost, she spotted him. Standing on one of the landings just off the staircases on the third floor, Lucius leaned against the sturdy railing and watched her silently from above.

She walked briskly up the steps, trying to avoid any unwanted attention by moving too quickly, but determined not to lose him again. By the second floor, he had stepped off the landing onto the third floor and out of sight. _'Damn it! Stay still!'_ Hermione swore and livened up her pace, certain she was far enough away from the rest of the guests to avoid gathering their suspicions. The third floor seemed deserted, no doubt all the guests having clustered around the main level for the party rather than wandering off to explore the old enchanted castle. Cautiously stepping down the corridor, Hermione quietly peered into the rooms as she passed them. He couldn't have simply disappeared into thin air. Though this castle was surely full of powerful magic, this was not one of its many tricks and illusions.

She was just about to pass the entrance to the library when his voice found her from inside. "You're following me, Miss Granger." Stepping into the familiar library, Hermione felt the nostalgic warmth wash over her as the smell of old textbooks and worn in wooden reading tables reached her immediately.

He was standing beside a large bookcase, a tattered old title held loosely in his hands as he flipped through the pages, uninterested in its content. Ignoring his accusation, as true as it was, Hermione came right out and confronted him. "What do you want with Kingsley and Harry?"

A light smirk lifted at the corners of his lips as he closed the book and slid it back onto the shelf. "Either you're extraordinarily clever, or you've been prying where you shouldn't be." He moved away from the bookcase, trailing his fingertips on the edge of the table in front of him as he approached her.

"Answer the question, Lucius. What are you going to discuss with them?" She stood in place as he finally reached her, stopping in front of her and willing his hands to stay off of her, despite what the rest of his body was telling him.

"You're a clever witch. I'm sure you've already figured it out by now. I'm going to tell them everything." He smiled weakly, still uneasy with the distance he forced himself to keep between them, as well as the decision he had made with Kingsley and Harry.

"By everything, you mean..." Hermione let her words trail off as she tried to see exactly how far he was planning to go with his decision.

Lucius nodded. "My involvement thus far, any information I've been withholding from them, and if they're as fair and just as you seem to think, they'll keep me alive long enough to get Draco out of this mess he's placed himself in."

The concern hit her only a second after the initial relief. He had finally made the right decision, a complete decision. No more toeing the line or sitting on the fence. He was diving in head first and she only hoped he would be met with unbiased, open minded responses from Kingsley and Harry. Out of everyone in the Order and the Ministry, they were his best bets, but she still worried. "If they don't agree, then what?"

Somewhat disappointed with her question, Malfoy lifted his chin and pushed an air of false confidence onto his tone. "I imagine they'll send me to Azkaban, if not for my involvement, then at the very least for lying to them for months." Lucius took a step forward and reached for her hand. "Which is why I'd like you to sit in on the meeting."

"Me?" She asked quickly. "In case you didn't notice during the last time we tried to talk to the Order, they don't exactly listen to me any more than anyone else. I don't know what you think I'd be able to do if I were there."

She felt his thumb stroke at the back of her hand gently, lovingly, and it reminded her of how tender he had been, how caring he had seemed for the past few months. "I obviously can't trust them, and they seem to think they can't trust me."

"But you trust me?" Hermione questioned softly. Lucius nodded, refusing to take his eyes off of her. "Even after everything I said the other night? I-," She hesitated as a light blush spread over her cheeks. It seemed rude somehow to admit what she was about to say, but she had never been one to hold her tongue when her morals were in question. "I'm not taking any of it back, Lucius. I can't."

"I wouldn't want you to." Lucius raised an eyebrow and shrugged one of his shoulders loosely. "You need to do what's right for you, just like I need to do what's right for me. I wouldn't expect anything less, not from you. You're too strong willed for that." He smiled, his eyes lingering on hers before dropping to her lips. They curved at his words, coaxed into a blushing, bashful smile that seemed to brighten her face beautifully. "A true Gryffindor, I suppose."

His gaze dropped down to her crimson dress, lifting his cheeks boyishly as his smile grew. She was spectacular and if the past few days spent without her didn't already draw him to her out of pure necessity, the sight of her then in the softly lit castle's library had brought him to step closer to her. His free hand lifted and fell to the curve of her waist as their joined hands rose up between them. Lucius found her eyes once more and lowered his lips to the back of her hand, lightly tickling at the smooth fair skin with a kiss. "May I have that dance now, Miss Granger?"

The old library's enchanted stone walls cut out all sound from the outside world, including the music from the wedding reception floors beneath them, but it didn't matter. She felt his hand caressing seductively at her hip and saw the spark of desire light up like a torch in his eyes. Logic and reason would have told her to wait until after the meeting on Monday, to see if he was truly a man of his word. The nagging reminder that the library wasn't secure, wasn't even locked against fellow intruders swept through her briefly. But as she felt his lips graze teasingly over her hand again, every reason to refuse dissolved, melting instead into an overwhelming wave of approval and desire.

She brought her opposite hand up to rest on his shoulder and felt him slide the hand at her waist back behind her, settling comfortably into the small of her back. With his movements to guide her, Lucius stepped forward just as she glided back, meeting the shifts and slow shuffles of his feet with her own graceful steps. He drew her to the left slightly before shifting them forward again, turning in unison as if the imaginary song's tempo had suddenly quickened before dropping back down to a steady, passionate pace. He felt her front press against his as she held onto his shoulder, her fingers daintily lingering sweetly at the base of his neck beside the thin black ribbon in his hair.

Their dance seemed never ending, though without a song to guide them, they could have gone on forever and never noticed, lost in the feel and movements of one another. Though the scattered tables and bookshelves of the library limited their area slightly, they weaved in between the obstacles expertly, as if they had guided one another through the same waltz many times before, predicting the others movements and reacting to them perfectly. It wasn't until they reached the far back wall of the library that their movements clashed.

Lucius turned his back to the wall behind them, intending to walk her backwards to where they had begun their dance, but Hermione stepped towards him. His back hit the wall and an adjacent bookcase to his right as her hands slid down from his broad shoulder to his chest. Their lips met impatiently before either could fully coordinate their movements. Drawing the heat of his arms around her with a fevered pace, Lucius pulled her against him possessively. No matter how flush her body was against his, it still didn't seem close enough, not with those irritating dress robes and bridesmaid's dress keeping them apart.

His hands sunk down the length of her back, skimming delicately at the outline of her undergarments through the fabric of her dress until he reached the backs of her thighs. Passing over the hem of the skirt, his palms found the hot flesh hidden beneath. His lips broke free from hers to taste the thin, responsive skin of her neck. "Does this mean you've missed me?" The proud wizard murmured against her with a smirk.

"Oh Gods, Lucius," Hermione sighed softly as he nipped and suckled at just the right spot. She felt his fingers slip further up her dress. The nagging, untimely reminders of their location rose up once more. This time, she couldn't ignore it. "Someone might see us." Hermione warned with an irritated groan. The last thing she needed was for him to stop.

Luckily, he didn't. His mouth dropped down from her neck to the tops of her breasts. "Not if we're quiet, my dear." He smirked against the sensitive skin of her bosom, grazing his lips over the freshly formed goosebumps. "It is a library after all," he teased. His hands gripped at her bottom, lifting her with a turn until her legs wound around him, her back now against the wall where he had been.

The feeling of his arousal pressed eagerly against her through the fabric of their clothes. With her forearms on his shoulders and her arms wrapped around his neck, Hermione hugged him tightly for support as her weight fell to his waist. If anything, the thought of being caught made it seem even more exciting, almost daring in nature. As she felt the trousers of his dress robes loosen and slack, free of his belt's thick silver bucket, she readied herself above him and sunk down hungrily.

He nearly lost his footing, the sensation of her sudden warmth around him overwhelming and consuming. Lucius stilled inside her as his length filled her simply by their positioning. "Gods, witch." A groan escaped him, his lips finding hers as their shared movements grew steadily faster.

She began to shush him, playfully reminding him that they were in a library, but a firm thrust from his hips to hers interrupted her, morphing her words into a throaty cry, urging him forward and quickening their pace. She ground against him, trying to reach the same delicious spot he had explored in her moments earlier. The grip of her arms around his neck tightened, pressing down on his shoulders with her forearms as her back arched with each deepened entry.

The sensations washed over them, the risk and the sense of forbidden acts heightening their rush like neither of them expected. He was pulsing, straining to last long enough under her to help her find her release, but the excitement was too much. With his throbbing member buried deep inside her womanly opening, he had to let go, had to succumb to his body's primal response. "Damn it!" Lucius swore, feeling his own restraint weakening as his relief threatened to take over early. His hands gripped at her bottom tighter, lifting and repositioning her at a suddenly deeper angle in one last effort to synchronize their peaks together. "Come on, darling. Let me feel you." He groaned, his breath hot against the delicate curve of her neck.

His encouragements and desperate pleas matched with the thickness he had grown to was beyond enough to send her over the edge. The determination in his drive, pulling out before letting her sink back down with such a fire between them drove her mad. If it weren't for their vertical positioning, she was sure she would have straddled him by now and made quick work of her own release, but with her legs wrapped around his waist and her back against the old castle's wall, her movements were slightly limited. "Please, Lucius." Hermione tightened her legs around him, raising herself up by her own will, demanding a stronger sensation as her body craved more of him.

He obliged. Losing control but needing to bring her through the waves of ecstasy with him, Lucius grabbed her firmly around the middle and pulled her away from the support of the wall. She engulfed him completely as her waist fell solely to his hips. With an adrenaline-fueled drive, they turned quickly to the side to the closest table a few feet away. The stack of textbooks on the table's edge were knocked aside, tossed carelessly to the floor as her back dropped down on the table's old wooden surface. A spare page of parchment itched at her lower back where her bridesmaid's dress had been lifted up, but she couldn't stop. She wouldn't stop.

With his arms suddenly free and his legs no longer needing to support her weight as well as his, Lucius felt liberated, free to devour her with as much thirst as he could handle. His palms fell to the table at her sides as his lips found hers and demanded entry. He felt the grip of her fingertips at his forearms, traveling up hungrily to his biceps before passing over his chest. Though the suit-like overcoat of his dress robes had been unbuttoned earlier in the night, his crisp white dress shirt was still denying her the sight of his bare torso, as firm and as strikingly alluring as she recalled it being.

It didn't matter. Clothed or not, her release was approaching, teetering on the edge as he found his own climax inside her. Their kiss broke with his final bucks against her. He felt her tighten around him, following closely behind as he emptied himself inside her. The curl of his lips reached down to capture her one last time before his arms would give way to fatigue, threatening to leave him breathless and spent on the table beside her.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: I'm a little rusty, I know! But hopefully that wasn't too dreadful :) As always, reviews are always greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading.<strong>_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	36. Chapter 35

_**Author's Notes: I blame World of Warcraft wholly for the inexcusable delay of this chapter. Smut lies ahead. You've been warned. Enjoy!**_

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><p>They had spent a short while in the library at Hogwarts, collecting themselves and ensuring their appearances were immaculate before separately making their exit to the grounds where they could apparate freely to the Manor. That had been hours ago, a fogged memory now as they lay entangled together under the thin silver satin sheets of his enormous bed.<p>

His fingertip traced the lines of her palm, slowly dragging along the long curved line spanning from the bottom all the way up to the base of her index finger before moving over to the next crease. Hermione squirmed her hand away with a soft giggle. "That tickles."

"How can that tickle?" He asked with a smirk, pulling her hand back and gently scratching his fingertips spontaneously at the palm.

"No, not like that. Here, give me yours." Hermione grabbed his hand at the wrist and flipped it palm-side up. Careful not to apply too much pressure to any one specific spot, she softly brushed her fingers against his palm, tracing the lines as he had done with hers before veering off to the smoother patches in between. Her eyes flickered between his hand and his eyes, waiting for the same giddy response she had given him. Her fingers continued to move, caressing over the sensitive skin, teasing at the edges before swinging back to the center for another swirl. As her index finger approached its third time around his palm, she smiled, defeated, and pushed his hand back towards his chest. "Your hands are all callous, but trust me, it tickles." She reached for his other hand. "Let me try this one."

Lucius held out his hand, watching her intently as she applied the same treatment, slowly trying to tantalize him through the palm. He smiled. She seemed so focused, so fully absorbed, even with something as simple as trying to tickle his hand. She was sweet and kind, everything he had tried so hard to distance himself from for years. Now, as she eyed him with a determined little look on her face while her fingers kept moving over his palm, he wished that distance would never return. Spotting his smile, she grinned triumphantly and asked, "Feel anything?"

His eyes fell on hers, loving the way they creased at the corners when she smiled a genuine smile, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Silently, he gave a small nod and felt her fingers stall against the firm skin of his palm. Freeing it from her grasp, Lucius cupped the side of her face, and drew her into a kiss wordlessly. His fingers tickled at her cheek, trailing down to her jawline to trace the softness of her skin down to her neck, knowing the sensation would grant him a deeper taste than that of a simple peck. The more he felt her in his arms and tasted her on his lips, the longer he wanted to keep her there.

As if fighting against his own movements, his brows furled as he pulled away from her kiss, the feeling of her still lingering on his lips like sugar. Her expression paused, eyes examining his until she was satisfied with the teasing sample of him and dropped her head down to rest her cheek against the firmness of his chest. His hand reached for her hair, brushing it away from her face and following the long auburn locks over her shoulder and down the length of her arm before beginning over again from the top. "Stay with me," he presented quietly, his voice soft as if whispering a secret, or perhaps confessing to one. "We can raise the wards around the Manor, strengthen them. Lock ourselves away." His chin lowered, bringing his lips against the top of her head as he offered with a timid anticipation, "You don't need to leave."

She would need to return to the burrow in a matter of hours for the private ceremony. Her beautiful bridesmaid's dress lay in a crumbled mess on the floor beside the bed, along with his fresh new dress robes. A simple charm would release the setting wrinkles easily enough, easier than it would be for her to leave him once the night grew to early morning. She couldn't bear to ruin what they had developed, laying in each others arms for hours with not a care in the world except that they were together. Hermione buried the side of her face further against his chest and closed her eyes. "Go to sleep, Lucius," she cooed softly, tightening her arms around his torso.

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><p>As she returned to the burrow early the following morning, Hermione noticed she wasn't the only one yawning and falling asleep at the kitchen table. Mrs. Weasley looked slightly less chipper than usual but the younger Weasley family members had obviously been awake for most of the night. The party at Hogwarts had been planned to end no later than midnight, but seeing as it had started around five in the afternoon, that meant a solid seven hours at least of shaking hands, accepting congratulations and entertaining the entire wizarding world as they came to pay their respects to the bride and the groom.<p>

Harry made his way down the stairs and entered the kitchen, looking disheveled and exhausted. "Harry, dear. Come get something warm in your belly before the guests start to arrive."

"Guests?" Harry asked. "Already? What time is it?" He yawned, rubbing at his tired eyes and gave Ginny a loving peck on the cheek as he took a seat at the table.

Mrs. Weasley passed him a plate, filled to the brim with an assorted collection of eggs, toast, and breakfast meats. "It's nearly half past ten. We have until noon to get everything ready."

"I don't know what we were thinking, doing all this in one weekend." Ginny shook her head and took a bite from her toast. Her stomach was in knots, a bundle of nerves as she thought of what the rest of the day held for them. At least by the end of the late afternoon, she and Harry could finally escape away to their newly acquired flat in London and relax, free to enjoy their honeymoon in whatever way they saw fit. Perhaps they would sleep. Hermione smiled at the thought and imaged them passing out from exhaustion before even reaching their marital bed.

By quarter past two, the Weasley's garden had been transformed into a beautifully arranged venue. The guests had arrived, a modest showing of no more than fifty or so people ranging from members of the Order to friends both Harry and Ginny had acquired over the years. Mrs. Weasley's hard work laboring over the many dishes for the evening had finally come to completion as the guests headed straight for her delicious cobbler and cream above all else.

Hermione helped Ginny into her dress, a delicate white design stitched together with a gorgeously sophisticated trim. All the subtle odes to Gryffindor's colors that had been on her dress the previous night had been left out of the wedding gown, leaving only her with her fiery red hair and the soft sprinkle of freckles that spread over her nose and dripped down to her shoulders and chest. Her makeup was simple, pure and clean with just enough of a spark to lighten her eyes and give her an alluring glow.

"You look beautiful, Ginny, really." Hermione grinned excitedly at her, fixing a stray bit of hair that had somehow escaped through the side of Ginny's veil.

"Thanks, Hermione." They hugged, careful not to tear or wrinkle the delicate fabrics of the dress.

"Ok, girls! Places!" Mrs. Weasley called to them as she entered the room, beaming with pride and an uncontrollable sense of overjoy that only a mother could claim. Her only daughter had finally grown up, survived the sea of wild brothers around her, as well as the untimely war that had interrupted her childhood. But as she stood in her wedding gown, ready to take her vows and begin a family of her own, Mrs. Weasley couldn't help but feel the tears begin to form. "Oh dear, take your places, girls." She covered the lower half of her face as her words of encouragement and guidance shrunk away to make room for the lump that had locked itself deep in her throat.

Hermione smiled and took Mrs. Weasley's place by the door, ready to guide Ginny's dress train clear through the path to the gardens. "Come along, Mrs. Potter. Your wedding awaits." She teased as she escorted Ginny through the doorway.

The vows were almost as spectacular as the entire ceremony. Harry had promised to always love Ginny and protect her no matter what obstacles came their way, and in return, Ginny had vowed to stay by his side, supporting him in his all his future endeavors, through thick and thin. They exchanged rings and embraced with a passion-filled, loving kiss that made the entire audience awe in unison. Harry blushed and Ginny bit at her bottom lip nervously as they walked back down the aisle together. Rose pedals had been charmed to fall down from the sky just as they stepped on the path leading out of the gardens.

The cheers and joyous cries rang out all around them, bidding them farewell and a happy honeymoon as they waved goodbye to their friends and family. With their arms intertwined and one last kiss, they disappeared with a familiar pop, apparing from the Weasley's garden to the beautiful life that lay ahead of them. Hermione felt a tear collect along the edge of her eyeline and spill over to roll down the curve of her cheek. _'They deserve to be happy,'_ she thought privately as one particular blonde wizard came to her mind. She wished he was there.

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><p>Escaping the after party an hour and a half later, Hermione found herself at Malfoy's door. The heavy silver door knocker resembled the sleek curving shape of a snake; deep emerald gems placed carefully in tiny little sockets made up the eyes with just enough detail to express its obvious worth to anyone who happened to get past the enormous iron gates surrounding the whole estate. Hermione grabbed the snake by its long neck and struck the door with it.<p>

A moment or two passed before she heard the door's wards and enchantments release. Lucius stood in the threshold as the door opened. He stepped back a few paces and pulled the door further away, allowing her entrance. "I wasn't expecting to see you again this weekend. Come in." Hermione thanked him and walked in. She was still wearing the dress she had worn to the private ceremony. It was modest, for which Hermione had been thankful. There were no doubt many weddings where the bridesmaids' dresses were beyond horrendous, if only to make the bride appear even more spectacular than she would otherwise seem. Luckily, Ginny had enough confidence to shield her wedding party from such embarrassment. Lucius's eyes trailed down the length of her dress before meeting again with her face. "You look beautiful, but surely the party can't be over already?"

"It's not," Hermione agreed. "I left early. I think we should talk about tomorrow."

Lucius nodded and guided her into the sitting room further down the corridor. When they were seated and settled, he began. "What are you thinking?"

"Well," Hermione paused. She had been thinking a lot since she learned of his plans to expose himself to Kingsley and Harry on Monday. She was concerned, she was curious, but most of all, she was uneasy with it. "How sure are you that you want to do this?"

Malfoy chuckled. "You're bringing this up now? The meeting is tomorrow afternoon. I'd say I'm fairly certain at this point." She was making him nervous. The sudden doubt in her tone was throwing him off and he couldn't place where it was coming from.

"I just mean, how certain are you that this is the best option at the moment? What exactly are the other options that we're left with?" Hermione asked. She was beating around the bush and it was frustrating him.

"Hermione, what are you trying to say? You've been pushing me for months to make this decision and now you're questioning it." He shook his head and looked away, his composure slowly slipping as doubt began to rattle his confidence.

The way his brows pinched together as he tried to make sense of what she was telling him made her regret saying anything at all, but she needed to try. "You said at the worst, they would sent you back to Azkaban for lying to them. The more I think about it, the less certain I am that I can help change their mind in your favor. I mean, Harry might listen to me, but the Minister has no reason to hear me out." She shook her head and rubbed at her temple nervously. "I'm afraid I won't be able to do as much as you think I can." She was concerned, but as he heard what had her so worried, he breathed a sign of relief.

"You can do plenty. You're just getting cold feet. That's all." Lucius tried to comfort her. He reached for her hand and brought it up to his lips. "It'll be fine." He kissed the back of her hand and let it drop back down between them, still held comfortably against his palm.

"I don't know how you can be so calm, Lucius." She spoke softly with a shake of her head. "What are you going to do if they decide to send you to Azkaban?"

Lucius paused. A small smile spread over his lips as he answered confidently, "My participation in any illicit activities with the V.R.S. has been minimal at best. I don't plan on throwing it all in and confessing to every wrong that I've done, but I will admit to them that I've lied about my current standings and that I've been approached by high ranking members for recruitment. I'll say that I mulled my options over and after a stint of several alcohol-fueled nights, I made the mistake of agreeing to join them." Lucius shrugged and leaned back against the sofa, satisfied with his trained response. "You know them better than I do. Does that sound like enough reason to lock me away for the rest of my life?"

The more she thought about it in truth, the less she had to argue with. The majority of the nights when attacks or V.R.S.-related assaults took place, Lucius had been with her. She was his alibi for nearly everything they could possibly try to pin on him. Though he had made the mistake of agreeing to join them in the first place, knowing that it would violate his probationary restrictions, unless he specifically committed any of the crimes, they had nothing to hold him for. "No, you're right. It'll be fine." She repeated his words and tried think positive. If he wasn't concerned, obviously she was fretting over nothing. "I just worry about you." She added in her own defense.

Lucius laughed and kissed the back of her hand sweetly. "I'm a survivor. I've lived through two wars, soon to be three, with my relative freedom intact and a beautiful witch by my side." The warmth of his smile spread over his face and lightened his eyes as he watched her blush. "I appreciate your vigilance over me, darling, but keep your worries for someone who needs it."

Hermione smirked, cocking an eyebrow upwards dramatically, "Okay, tough guy, but I hope you know that I'm on to you."

"How so?" Lucius played along, lifting his chin and stretching his arms out to rest on the back of the sofa. "I have nothing to hide."

"You might put on for everyone else, acting all tough and pristine," the witch shifted to face him, drawing her bent leg up onto the sofa partially so as to square off with him. "Untouchable, superior," She continued. He watched her suspiciously and gave a subtle nod in agreement with each word. Her hands fell to his thighs, slowly working their way up against the fabric of his trousers until her fingers found the dense metal buckle to his belt. She stopped, drawing his eyes up to hers as she toyed with the buckle innocently. It was silver, shining bright against the dark shades of his clothes. "You might be tough, Lucius, but I know how to make you melt." The thick black length of the belt stretched and strained as she tugged lightly at the end, feeding it out of the buckle's grip with the delicious clang of loose leather against heavy metal.

He let out a suppressed groan, as if he had been holding his breath all along. She didn't doubt that he may have been doing exactly that. Her hands stilled as she leaned towards him and claimed his mouth with a fire that threatened to devour them both. His arms dropped down from the back of the sofa to grab at her hips, pulling her closer towards him until she was in his lap. Her legs straddled his waist and as their kiss deepened, she could feel his thickness beneath her, trapped against the damned fabrics that separated them. The cold silver of his belt met with the inner most section of her thigh, supple and delicate against the harsh, unforgiving nature of the metal.

The short blonde stubble that surrounded his mouth tickled roughly at her lips as he hungrily matched her pace, fighting for control as she rose up on her knees above his lap. His neck arched back against the sofa, unwilling to give up the taste of her for even a moment. She was too sweet and as she shifted her lips away from his, suckling and nipping at the rough stubble of his throat, his patience for teasing and seductions had reached its limit. "Lie back." She felt the words against her lips as she kissed her way back up his neck slowly.

Ignoring his command entirely, Hermione reached down between them and felt for the fastenings of his trousers. He was firm, throbbing and ready from the pressure of her weight against his lap and the taste of her kiss still lingering on his tongue. Her hand wrapped around him, gripping at the thickness of his shaft before gently sliding her fingers up the length. He let out another groan and went for her throat. The rough, manly feel of his face was sure to leave her neck pink from the contact alone, but the heat of his mouth would soothe the tender flesh to perfection.

His hands on her waist were pulling her again as he positioned her womanhood over him. The bridesmaid's dress had been lifted up slightly as her undergarments shifted out of place, leaving her exposed and dripping. Abandoning her neck, he returned to her lips, drawing her back to him as she sunk down to completion. He swallowed down her sweet little sounds as the heated, hardened flesh filled her. The initial stretch at the sheer size of him left her panting, steadying herself above his lap as their joined movements began to fall into place. While on top, she had the flexibility to control their pace and intensity. Though his hands stayed at her hips, he left her free to orchestrate their rhythm as if it were solely her own.

The angle was different, unfamiliar as gravity took over and brought her down onto his length with little effort. Her arms reached up to rest on his shoulders as she began to settle into a promising beat. The slight swivel of her pelvis as she lifted herself off of him then crashed back down again, was driving him mad. He felt her beginning to tighten and knew her release would send him into his own soon enough. His eyes closed as his head fell back against the sofa. If she was trying to turn him to putty, she had succeeded and then some. Her pace quickened. He couldn't help but thrust upwards with her as she lowered down onto him, meeting in the middle with a hungry desire for more.

"Keep going, don't stop." Lucius groaned, but her peak was closing in quicker than either of them expected. "Don't stop," He warned again, a desperation laced into his words as his fingers dug into her hips. He began to feel her muscles spasm and shutter around him, but he wasn't there yet. She cried out as the sensation surged through her, traveling over her body and releasing the waves of endorphins as it reached her head. It was overwhelming but as the euphoria settled in, all she could feel were the tingles spreading back down her body and the throbbing of his movements still inside her.

She was slowing down as her release began to subside, leaving his trousers stained with the evidence of her pleasure. "Not yet, witch." Lucius urged her on. His hands slid up her back as he braced her front against him and shifted her off of his lap. Her back fell flat against the sofa as he positioned himself on top of her. The base of his manhood pressed flush against her opening as he bottomed out inside of her.

"Oh gods, Lucius," The feel of his waist settled snugly between her legs, and the sense of heightened arousal still radiating from her slick folds coaxed her hips to buck against him. She was slick from her own pleasure and felt like a velvet sheath around him, drawing the seed out of him like it had belonged to her all along. He was hers and she was his, and as his climax finally shuttered through him, he felt her second and final release explode around his manhood.

With the last of his strength and his member still buried inside of her, Lucius apparated them away from the sofa in the sitting room, and into the familiar warmth of his bed. His arm wrapped around her as he reached for her hand.

"I should go–," she began to say weakly, her eyes heavy with sleep and her mind already clouded with the promise of sweet dreams.

"Not tonight. Stay with me." Lucius stated simply. His voice held no inflection to suggest a question had been asked, but he knew the fear of her refusal was always looming.

A pregnant pause interrupted them as he held her against him, hoping she wouldn't stir, leaving the space beside him bare for yet another night. With a soft yawn, Hermione pulled the bed covers up around her shoulders and hugged his arm around her middle. "Good night, love." She answered quietly.

Lucius smiled, half-asleep, and kissed the tiny sliver of neck that her hair and the blankets hadn't already covered from sight. "Good night, darling."

He felt like home.

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Finally, a happy, sweet, everything-is-so-darn-perfect chapter! I honestly wasn't sure we'd ever get to this point. But we've made it! They can finally be happy together because, as Hermione said, '<strong>_**They deserve to be happy'_ :)_**

**_Next chapter will hopefully not be so badly delayed. Fingers crossed._**

**_xoxo WildBubblesRoam_**


	37. Chapter 36

_**Author's Notes: First and foremost, a big thank you for all the incredibly kind reviews I've received recently. I'm not sure where some of you folks are coming from, but I'm more than happy to have you here! I'll try to make your stay worth while :) Slightly longer chapter this time around. I was going to split it into two but decided against it. Anyway, I'll keep the rambling to a minimum. Enjoy!**_

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><p>Morning came too soon. Their meeting at the ministry had been scheduled for three o'clock, giving Harry just enough time to enjoy his first night as a married man along with the added bonus of a few hours of solid sleep. "You really should have waited until next week to ask for this little get-together. Harry's supposed to be on his honeymoon right now, not working." Hermione advised the blonde wizard as they sat at the intimately-sized luncheon table. Though it had been long since forgotten in one of the many unused rooms of the Manor, Hermione dragged it out and dusted it off a couple hours prior. When Lucius suggested they eat a light lunch before they leave, she had agreed, but to use the oversized black table that sat stiff and heavy in the dining room seemed ridiculous for only the pair of them. So out came the quaint, antique table for two.<p>

Lucius refused to allow it in the formal dining hall, claiming it would ruin the aesthetics of the room. So with the aid of her wand, Hermione levitated the small table down a long hallway until she finally found the perfect room. It was different from the others. Placed in the back of the manor and lined with tall, floor to ceiling windows, sat an almost entirely bare space. There were a few filler items scattered around, a stray lounge chair here, and a misplaced china cabinet there, but beyond those, the abandoned room was empty. It was the perfect spot, Hermione had decided, and dropped the table and its accompanying pair of chairs right in front of a window.

Their lunch had been eaten and their drinks were drank, leaving their small table bare as they discussed any and every topic that came to mind. As Hermione mentioned Harry, Lucius replied flatly, "It was now or never. I don't make these decisions lightly."

"Should we arrive together?" Hermione asked as her eyes peered idly out one of the windows to the back gardens. The grounds to the Manor were well-kept and manicured, but dull in all sense of the word. The bushes were plush and cared for, but without an excess splash of colors to break up the bland greens and browns, it seemed too institutional. She wondered silently if he would be opposed to her and Mimbi taking shovel and hoe to the sad excuse of a garden, if only to liven it up a bit.

Lucius hesitated as he considered their options. "I suppose it would be best for us to meet there separately. At this point, I wouldn't disregard the assumption that there could be eyes everywhere beyond these walls. I wasn't exactly welcomed with their complete trust and hospitality at the last V.R.S. meeting I attended." His face had paled at the recollection of that night. He had been terrified, for his son, for his own life, and for hers. Now that the war had progressed and their forces strengthened, they were only bound to become more unpredictable, more dangerous with each passing day. Lucius followed her eyes out to the gardens and tried to imagine what this day would hold for them had peaceful times remained after Voldemorte's fall.

"I'll go first. Wait ten minutes, then leave for the Ministry. We'll meet outside the Minister's office." Hermione instructed.

"Fifteen minutes, and you'll come second. They're not expecting you. I don't want to shock them so badly that they refused to hear what I have to say." Lucius replied sternly. "Have Mimbi apparate you from the Manor. You won't be able to do so safely on your own on account of the wards. I'll have her summoned before I leave."

They rose from the table and embraced. He felt safe beside her, wanted, and as he dipped down to taste her lips one more time before his departure, she reached up to meet him halfway. "See you soon."

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><p>Time dragged and as Mimbi finally appeared by her side with a faint pop, Hermione was more than ready to leave. The skinny little elf grinned happily as she took the witch's hand. "Miss Granger comes back?" Her eyes seemed hopeful, filled with light and still as she stared sweetly up at Hermione.<p>

The witch nodded. "I'll be back, don't worry." With the simple promise of her return, Mimbi was beyond thrilled. The frail, childlike house elf smiled at the witch one last time before apparating them both to the Ministry's entrance.

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><p>The Ministry was a busy mess of witches and wizards crisscrossing from this office to that, a swarm of wizarding professionals as they went on with just another typical day at work. Hermione wondered if any of them would stop her and question her reason for being there. Would it be safe for her to say she was meeting the Minister? She wasn't sure, keeping her head down as she made her way to Kingsley's office further past one of the long, narrow hallways.<p>

Lucius was standing tall and proud a few doors down from their final destination. His hands were crossed behind his back, his long black walking stick dangling loosely between his fingers, just barely floating a few millimeters above the floor. She greeted him with a warm smile, entirely platonic in appearance, though the few workers that were nearby seemed to be too buried in their work to notice the pair of them. "You arrived safely, I see." Lucius commented, a subtle smile slipping past the tightness of his lips to travel up to his eyes before fading away, back to his most professional, stone expression.

Hermione nodded. "We're early." She began to wonder if they should wait elsewhere, or simply go knock on the office door and see if Kingsley and Harry were already there.

"Only by a few minutes. It shouldn't be a problem." Lucius replied confidently. He wanted to reach out for her hand, if only for the feel of it, but his years of self-control while under Voldemort's command had trained him well enough to know better. Body language spoke volumes louder than any words ever could. His back stayed rigid as he kept his feet planted well away from hers, leaving their arms with absolutely no chance of any accidental contact. He would make up for the distance later when she could writhe and moan beneath him without the fear of exposure threatening them both. "After we're through here, do you have any plans for the evening?"

"I should make at least a brief appearance back at the Burrow." Though she hadn't said so, she was beginning to prefer the calm and quiet of the Manor to the constant full-house feel of the Burrow. They were her friends and in a way, her family, but the lack of privacy versus the relative freedom of the Manor was no comparison. "I'll say the house felt too crowded after the party, so I took up in a room at the Leaky Cauldron instead."

Lucius nodded and added casually, "I appreciate your company."

Hermione grinned. She couldn't tell if he was referring to her coming to the Ministry with him, or if he meant her company in a more general sense of the term. Then of course, there was always the possibility that his thoughts fell deviously to their more provocative activities behind closed doors. For the sake of dignity and saving face against any potential eavesdroppers, Hermione agreed just as nonchalantly, "Thank you, Lucius. Likewise."

A door opened further down the hallway behind them as Kingsley and Harry made their way towards the pair. Lucius spotted them first, giving her a warning glare as he waiting for them to approach. Hermione drew in a breath. As far as Harry last knew, she hated Lucius. _'This should be interesting...'_ she thought with a silent groan.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me under such short notice, Minister," Lucius nodded respectfully at Kingsley before turning to Harry. "Mr. Potter, it's good to see you've recovered accordingly from the busy weekend. Congratulations and my best wishes to you and your wife." He was putting on the charm, though he knew it wouldn't impress either of them. They hadn't taken their eyes off of Hermione until Lucius had begun speaking, and even then, their eyes kept darting back over to the witch by his side. He would need to redirect them if he wished to gain anything at all from this meeting. "I believe your office is just down the corridor, is it not, Minister?"

Kingsley's face had been stern, brows sharp over his eyes as his suspicions to Hermione's presence ran wild in his head. At Malfoy's less than subtle prodding, he seemed to snap out of it, at least temporarily, nodding and answering quickly, "Yes, of course. Right this way." The Minister escorted them to his office, only to hesitate beside the door. "Miss Granger, there's a waiting area just around that corner." He motioned further down the hallway.

"Actually, she'll be sitting in." Lucius interjected, an eyebrow twitching upwards as he explained, "Moral support."

Hermione nodded. "I won't be a bother. You won't even notice I'm there."

The Minister glanced over at Harry silently before turning to Malfoy. "Unfortunately, due to the sensitive material that may be discussed, I'm afraid that won't be possible."

"I have no issues with Miss Granger being present." The blonde wizard disagreed. "She can hear anything I have to say."

Kingsley apologized with a soft shake of his head, correcting his wording. "Sensitive material for the ministry." He shifted his gaze to the witch among them. "I'm sorry, Hermione, but we've been forced to play things fairly close to the chest from now on. Current events have pushed us to raise security measures, as I'm sure you understand."

Hermione bit at the inside of her cheek, debating whether to stand her ground and demand her spot in the room, or to hold her tongue for the sake of all fairness given to Lucius during the meeting. With one final pleading glare at Harry, she realized his hands were as tied as hers in the matter. "If you have any questions, or need my input, I'll be right outside this door." She promised, her eyes shifting between Harry and Lucius equally.

Harry nodded and agreed. Lucius thanked her and gave a comforting smile. "Don't worry. I won't be long."

He was confident and as Kingley opened the door and allowed the two men in, Lucius was the first to enter. She wanted to say something, wanted to let them know just how much he had changed and how good of a man he had become, but his actions and his own words would be enough, if only because they had to be. The door clicked softly closed behind them, leaving Hermione out in the hallway alone. She stilled in front of the door until she heard a magical shutter spread over it, silencing all sounds from both leaving the room or entering it.

Her eyes dragged down the length of the hallway to the waiting area with a disapproving stare. With a deep breath, Hermione stepped to the side and leaned lightly against the wall beside the door to Kingsley's office. No matter how long or short their meeting lasted, it would feel like an eternity as she waited with as much patience as she could muster.

* * *

><p>The first ten minutes seemed to blitz past as she tried to decide exactly what Lucius had chosen to tell them. Would he begin with an apology or go straight into it with a confession of his wrongs? If he did either, how would Harry and Kingsley respond? Would they even reply, or would they let him speak fully and completely before giving their opinions? How many questions would they bombard him with? How much information would they demand immediately after agreeing to help him?<p>

Hermione shifted against the wall as her back stiffened from the lack of movement. After half an hour of standing outside the door, a middle-aged witch with bright red hair, curled to perfection and accessorized with a petite purple bow approached her with a glass of clear liquid. "Would you like some water, dear? There's a waiting area with chairs just down this hallway here," She began to offer, handing Hermione the water with a polite smile.

"Thank you, but I'm okay over here. They won't be much longer." The younger witch accepted the water with a grateful return of her smile, keeping her feet planted on the floor beside the office door. The red-haired, bow-sporting witch left with an understanding nod and a promise to assist if Hermione needed anything.

* * *

><p>It felt like her eyelids had grown weights at the ends, drooping down slowly every so often as the boredom threatened to take over her in the form of sleep. Hermione jerked her head up, flickering her eyes open just before they had fully closed. This had been the sixth time she nearly nodded off, but as she looked at the clock hanging further down the hallway on the opposite wall, it only showed an hour since Lucius had entered the office. Hermione groaned and shifted on her feet for what seemed like the hundredth time, crossing her arms tighter over her chest as she leaned back against the wall for support.<p>

Before long, her eyes caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. She squinted, convinced she had finally gone mad with boredom. Floating down to her from around the edge of one of the hallway's walls was a fairly comfortable-looking chair, complete with a fluffy cushion and a pair of firm armrests on either side. She blinked and pushed herself up off of the wall. The same middle-aged witch with the bow appeared around the corner, wand in hand, as she guided the heavy chair down the hallway to Hermione. "You didn't have to –," Hermione began as the chair dropped down lightly beside the wall where she had been leaning.

"Oh, nonsense, dear. You'll sooner fall asleep on your feet than leave that spot. What's the harm in giving your toes a rest for a little while?" She beamed cheerily, adjusting the chair against the wall until it was straight.

"Thank you," Hermione blushed. She hadn't realized anyone was watching her and wondered if she looked nuts nearly nodding off before snapping her head back up, insisting to herself that she was awake when her mind demanded otherwise. The chair felt like heaven as she finally sat down, allowing her legs to relax for the first time in an hour. The ministry witch was just about to leave when Hermione stopped her hesitantly. "Excuse me, but I'm getting a bit worried. Do meetings with the Minister typically take this long?"

"Oh yes, dear." The witch replied before contradicting her answer. "Well, I suppose it depends on the importance of the meeting and what they're discussing."

Hermione shrugged and agreed. "It is important."

The woman smiled warmly again. "Then I'd say they're right around where they should be with the time frame."

With a subtle glance down the hallway where the witch had come from, Hermione debated asking if there was a loo down there as well, but decided against it. With her luck, as soon as she reached the toilet, the meeting would end and Lucius would think she had grown inpatient and left. She crossed her legs gracefully and thanked the witch again for her kindness.

* * *

><p>At the peak of the second hour, almost stretching to the third, Hermione spotted someone coming down the hallway again. <em>'Don't tell me she's brought me a bucket,'<em> Hermione thought humorously before realizing there wasn't only one person walking down the long hall, but two people. The witch's red hair was no where to be seen as two sturdy men strutted down the corridor. Their uniforms were crisp and creased in all the right places, if only strengthening their appearances along with the official Ministry of Magic seals they wore on the right breasts of their shirts. Hermione watched as they approached, expecting them to continue down the hallway to their final destination somewhere else in the ministry, but as they stopped in front of the Minister's door and knocked, Hermione shot up from her chair. "Excuse me, but there's a very important meeting taking place in there. You'll have to come back later." Her eyes were judging, scanning over their uniforms, down to the wands holstered securely by their waists, and the unyielding seriousness slashed across their faces.

One of the men turned to the other before they both looked back at Hermione, perplexed and curious by her presence. The shorter of the two replied matter-of-factually, "We've been summoned by the Minister himself. You'll have to stand back, Miss." The man knocked again.

"I think there's been a mistake." Hermione insisted. "What are your jobs exactly?" She didn't mean to sound at all rude or disrespectful but if he kept knocking on the door so loudly, they were sure to disrupt the meeting going on inside, silencing charms or not.

The same officer who had spoke before glanced at her again, perhaps wondering what her exact security clearances were. He doubted she held any sort of position of authority over them, otherwise she would be sitting in the room with the Minister and not locked out like some miscreant up to no good. "Please step back, Miss." The second officer repeated, drawing his arm up as somewhat of a barrier between her and the door. The knob jiggled with a quick rattle as the spells dispersed away from it, lifting the silencing spell and the adjacent wards that locked them out. Both uniformed wizards straightened their stance, stiffening their back and positioning their arms firmly by their sides. The door opened, urging the officers to respond in unison, "Minister Shacklebolt, Sir."

"At ease." Hermione heard Kingsley address them from inside the room. "Just in here. Harry, the wand." He spoke as if giving instructions, but as the two men entered the doorway, they blocked her view entirely.

"Excuse me," her voice had quivered as she slipped her way into the room behind them. "Minister, what is –," She began to question the officers' presence, though as much as she hated to admit it, she knew the answer already. She didn't need to see his hands tied tightly behind his back, or his wand being passed loosely from Harry's hands to one of the officer's. She didn't need to see it to make it true, but as she did, she wished she hadn't.

Her throat felt uncomfortably tight and her breathing seemed harder to control. Before she knew what she was doing, she had pushed her way past the officers, disregard for the gentleness that she lacked, and blocked Lucius as best as she could. "What are you doing?" She shouted at Harry. "Untie his wrists." Harry didn't move. "Now, Harry!"

"I can't do that, Hermione." He insisted, giving the officers a slight nod to continue.

They stepped forward, but Hermione wouldn't back down. She spread out her arms to the side, covering as much of Lucius as she could, though the height difference proved difficult to overcome, even with his head hanging somewhat low as he stood wordlessly behind her. "This isn't how it was supposed to be." She could feel her voice betraying her, the irritating first signs of the sobs that would surely come soon enough. Her attention shifted to Kingsley. "He can help us. We can win this war, but we need his help. You're making a mistake."

The Minister shook his head solemnly. "I'm sorry, but the decision has already been made."

"No!" Her first thoughts were to plead with them again, try to get them to see, to understand, but as the mixture of fear and anger began to overwhelm her, all she wanted to do was draw her wand and keep them away from him. If she could just buy him a bit more time and keep the ministry officers off of him, maybe it would be enough. Her vision glossed over with the start of tears as her hand moved slowly over to her pocketed wand.

She felt the thin wood between her fingertips before her hand could fully grasp it. _'If they see my wand, will they strike me down? Will they think I mean to kill them?'_ Her thoughts were scattered, placed carelessly between the intentions to do good and remain calm, and the urge to do everything she needed to do to protect him. _'If they would just step back... give us some space,'_ Her eyes watched hesitantly as the officers gradually closed in, shifting closer and closer until she was left with no choice but to grip her wand fully, its wooden length held flush against her palm as the tip slowly began to slip away from the safety of her pocket.

"Hermione." His voice behind her stilled her movements, but her fingers wouldn't leave her wand. The tears had taken over, clouding her sight to near blindness as she heard him again. "_Hermione_, it's okay."

She grimaced as she tried not to notice the sense of utter defeat in his tone. _'It's not okay! You're restrained like some common criminal and they have your __**wand**__,'_ She wanted to ignore him, wanted to claim she hadn't heard him, but as she felt the brush of his front as he stepped closer behind her, her hand released and her wand dropped to the floor. "Lucius, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Abandoning all modesty or restraint, Hermione spun around and grabbed him around the torso. Her face buried against his chest as she tried to get a hold over the tears that fell down in heavy drops from her reddened cheeks. Lucius cursed the ties around his wrists, immobilizing his arms behind his back as she clung to his front. "Can you give us a moment?" He tried, figuring it was worth the attempt at least.

Harry looked to Kingsley, who in turn looked to the two officers, still waiting to collect their prisoner. One of them shook his head and mumbled to the Minister, "It's not generally advised to leave an inmate without supervision once he's been informed of his sentence."

Lucius kicked at Hermione's wand angrily on the floor, knocking it in front of their feet a few paces away. "You have my wand. She's unarmed. Satisfied?" He had remained relatively calm up until then, if only to keep Hermione from falling apart, but as he felt her hugging at him protectively and felt the quiet cries of her breath against his chest, his temper was faltering quickly. He watched as Kingsley began shaking his head, agreeing with the officer. "Can't you see she's upset? Have a heart!" One of the officers bend down to pick up Hermione's wand. Lucius ignored them, shifting his anger towards Harry instead. "And you! You call yourself her friend?" He forced out a laugh until Harry's face flushed a shameful shade of red.

"We can't leave you alone, Malfoy. I'm sorry, Hermione." He tried to get her to hear him, but no matter how many times Harry apologized, unless he was saying Lucius would not be going to Azkaban, she didn't care to hear any of it.

Lucius groaned at his apology and pleaded roughly, "At least give me my bloody hands." Their hesitance returned. This time Harry looked to the officers for their approval. "For fuck's sake," Lucius mumbled in disbelief. "I'm asking you, Potter. Not your pair of glorified guard dogs."

Harry frowned sorely, but stepped forward and grabbed Malfoy's hands by the thumbs. His wand sliced through the magically tied rope that had been used to bound his wrists, freeing his arms to wrap around the witch in front of him like he had wished to do since she entered the room. He muttered out his thanks and focused on brushing away the streaks of drying tears that coated Hermione's face. "Shh, shh." Lucius whispered softly, debating innerly whether a few sparingly placed kisses over her cheeks would seem too overly romantic for their current audience. If he had been granted the privacy of an empty room, his level of intimacy would have been without a question more pronounced, but they had her reputation to consider. With him locked away in Azkaban, she would be left with no one but the Order. And if their romantic relationship became public knowledge, nothing good would come of it for Hermione. Grudgingly, Lucius settled for a fairly platonic, almost fatherly kiss to her forehead. "It's okay. I'll be okay." He promised.

Hermione found her voice, her tears slowing and her throat loosening as he held her lovingly in his arms. "I'm so sorry. If I had known..." Her words faded away as the threat of more tears itched at her already reddened eyes.

"You didn't know." Lucius stated, his eyes lifting to glare at Kingsley and Harry before falling back to Hermione. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way. But I need you to listen to me." He spoke softly, lifting her chin with a gentle finger and smiling down as he trailed it along the smoothness of her almost dry cheek. "I need you to stay safe. Are you listening?"

"I'm listening," Hermione insisted. "But this isn't right, Lucius. You can't –,"

"I know, I know." He agreed. "But my say in the matter is no longer significant." Again, his eyes glared at the two men he had just spent the better part of almost three hours with.

"Lucius," She repeated with another tight hug. It had become blatantly clear that their time together had come to an end as the officers eyed the Minister for some sort of instruction.

"I have to go now, darling." He pressed a kiss to her forehead again, his lips lingering against her skin for as long as he could before pulling away and repeating, "I need you to stay safe."

Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped at the last bit of wetness that slipped from her eyes. "I will. When this is over, you'll be released. I'll find a way, I promise."

They didn't want to separate, nearly breaking down again as they peeled away from each other. Lucius presented his wrists, holding his arms out to the officers as they replaced the rope that had previously bound him, with a set of short shackles to secure his wrists together in front of him. They grabbed a hold of him by the upper arms, one on either side, and escorted him out of the office to where he could be properly transported to the wizard prison.

"How long is his sentence?" Hermione asked bleakly, the energy and spark that had once been in her voice was left barren as she retrieved her wand from the desk the officer had placed it on before leaving. She slipped it back into her pocket, her movements almost robotic as she tried to focus on keeping her emotions in check.

"The terms of his probation stated he wasn't to associate in any way, shape, or form with criminal activities." Harry explained.

It wasn't what she wanted to hear. She already knew his crimes. She knew his sins and had accepted them as well as his repentance, even if Harry and the Minister couldn't do the same. "How long, Harry?" She repeated.

He didn't want to answer. It wasn't what she wanted to hear and after seeing her so broken and vulnerable only moments ago, he didn't want to be the one to cause her even more heartache. Kingsley answered for him, gently stating with as much sincerity as he could, "It's a life sentence. I'm afraid that's what's standard in situations like this."

"_Situations like this,_" Hermione recited his wording, as if tearing it apart piece by piece until it somehow made sense. Except there were no similar situations. There were no other former death eaters who had offered their services without anything more than a simple agreement of protection. There were no other ex-death eaters who had transformed as much as Lucius had done, none that had so much to lose. And as Hermione's mind wandered to their morning together, their shared bed and all that went along with it, she knew there was no one else that would make her feel how she did when he was with her. There was only him, and now he was gone.

Her feet carried her numbly to the doorway. Harry's voice reached her as he apologized again, but the more he said it, the less she wanted to hear.

* * *

><p>Going back to the Weasley's home didn't sound appealing in the least. In a best case scenerio, she might end up bumping into Harry if she went to the Burrow. As an even worse option, Harry could have told them all about how poorly the meeting had gone. For the sake of her own safety and continued protection via the Order, Lucius hadn't expressed the depths of their relationship, but Hermione knew that wouldn't stop them from speculating. Even if Harry only mentioned that she had attended, they would still assume. He could skip over the bits and pieces of how she had completely cracked, how she had broken down and clung to the former death eater like some small child being torn away from her favorite item of comfort. <em>'How could I have been so stupid?<em>' She cursed, curling up on the squeaky bed of her rented room at the Leaky Cauldron. _'To think they would have accepted him...so stupid._'

She knew she couldn't avoid them forever. With the war climbing to higher and higher heights every day, she couldn't imagine turning her back on the side of the Light, not when every wand in their favor mattered more than it ever did in the past. Voldemort had all but destroyed the wizarding world before his permanent departure. She couldn't sit back and watch it happen all over again, not without putting up a fight of her own.

The evening refused to progress. At first, all she wanted to do was sleep. Perhaps if she slept, when she woke up, she would realize this had all just been some horrible dream. She could wake up in the Manor, in the warmth of Lucius's bedsheets like she had done that morning, and pretend none of today had even happened. She pinched her eyes tighter and pulled the thin, itchy fabric of the rented room's bedding up over her shoulders and round her neck until only the top of her head poked out. Her eyes swelled once more with the sting of sorrow as her throat tightened with a lump. He had made her promise to stay safe, but as she laid sobbing in the bed, the wards she would normally have placed around the room were left neglected. She knew she wouldn't have the amount of energy it would take to maintain them, at least not for any significant amount of time. The simple charmed lock on the door would have to suffice for the remainder of her stay, however long that would be.

* * *

><p><em>The haze only found in dreams clouded her mind and flooded her senses with the dark, damp cells of Azkaban prison. An armed guard, similar in dress to the officers she had seen earlier, escorted her down the long cell block at a brisk pace. His hand rested comfortably on the butt of his wand as they passed cell after filthy cell. The corridor was lined on either side with prisoners, inmates in dull gray striped pajamas with dirty faces and crude words. They shouted at her, whistled and catcalled, threatened her in every manner imaginable as she walked past their barred doors. She kept her eyes straight ahead as her heart pounded against the confines of her ribs.<em>

_ It was like walking down the line in a muggle animal shelter. The noise was overwhelming, with screams and yells penetrating into her instead of the anxious, angry barks that the typical room of dogs would provide. She swallowed down hard and left her lips parted, hissing in as much oxygen as she could through her mouth as her body demanded more and more from her. Her feet kept moving, quickly trailing behind the guard in a hope that should one of their shouts or promises of torture come to fruition, he would be able to somehow hold them back._

_ They reached the end of the long concrete hall. "You've been permitted a total of five minutes, no more." The guard informed her as he worked at lifting the countless charms and hexes that kept the door in front of them firmly sealed shut. A tiny window, just barely big enough to peer in through, was the only source of light reaching into the room from the dim illuminations of the hallway. "He's been restrained for your safety. The room has been charmed to only allow him to move so far before reaching an invisible barrier."_

_ "That's not necessary," Hermione heard her own voice as if she were more of a spectator than an actual participant in the conversation._

_ A loud noise struck out from behind the door, causing the guard to pound angrily at the tiny window with the butt of his wand. "Get back in the corner! Now!" He shouted at the prisoner inside until it complied, limping weakly away from the invisible barrier that had just zapped him back against the stone wall of the cell. "Stay!" The guard instructed loudly, ensuring his voice penetrated through the glass and steel of the thick prison door._

_ "This isn't necessary," Hermione repeated again firmly as the guard's harsh tone struck a cord in her._

_ "Just precautions, Miss." He explained apologetically. "It's not uncommon for wizards to lose their minds while confined to a cell here in Azkaban. I've seen a man attack and slaughter his own mother because he thought it would grant him the chance of an escape." He shook his head. "Not even a guarantee of it, just a chance." The door cracked open with a sharp pop as the magical seals that had held it shut slipped away under the guard's wand. "Stay by the door and keep your distance from the inmate. Your wand?" He extended his hand, holding it open in front of her as he waited for her to comply. She hesitated, slipping her wand out of her pocket to fiddle with it between her fingertips before finally handing it over to the guard. He dropped it into a hidden pocket against the left front side of his uniform and nodded towards the room. "You have five minutes."_

_ The room was dark and smelled of spoiled goods. There was movements against the back wall of the cell, if only a slight shutter as the light blinded the prisoner's view of her in the doorway. Her feet shuffled forward nervously as she tried to make sense of the lumps of shadows that huddled pathetically against the cold stone wall. The guard pounded on the door, catching her attention and pausing her movements with a startled tensing of her shoulders. His voice was muted as he shouted at her from outside the door, warning her to stay where she was, despite only being a few measly paces away from the cell's entrance._

_ She nodded back at him, turning away from the cell's interior for a moment at best. The sound of labored movement forced her head to snap back to the cell, searching the shadows of the back wall for the familiar mound of something human as her eyes readjusted to the darkness. He was gone. Against the better judgment of the guard standing outside, Hermione took another step forward, squinting into the indistinct remnants of the small room._

_ Unaware of just how closely she had moved towards the invisible barrier, Hermione heard the dull sizzle of its magical charge before she spotted him running towards her. His long blonde hair had become stringy and riddled with knots. The deep circles under his eyes left them sunken in and hollow until it appeared as nothing more than a pair of bright blue-gray orbs sitting unrecognizably above his pronounced cheekbones and deflated cheeks. His once revered jawline, strong and masculine in appearance, had been left to protrude harshly from the surrounding structure of his face, a gawky angle taking hold of the left side as if it had been shattered by force and left to heal on its own. The ghost of a man she had once known, once cherished, charged at her like a crazed beast, the bloodlust shining bright from his lifeless eyes._

_ He hit the barrier between them, sending sparks and bursts of light flashing only a foot in front of her face. They remained on his side, shocking him with a force that sent him hurling backwards into the jagged stone wall once more. He crumbled to the ground, no more than a lump of defeated shadows as she had seen him as only moments ago. "What have you done to him?" She shouted at the guard through the door. "He's hurt! Can't you see he's hurt!" Her pleads shifted uncontrollably from need of assistance to rage, mixing and blending until she couldn't separate the two emotions at all. "He needs a healer!" The witch shouted, striking the door violently with the side of her fist._

_ Though the small window provided a somewhat skewed view of the hallway beyond the door, it had been enough to see the guard standing outside waiting for her. But as her hands pounded at the steel and glass, she lost sight of him. The hallway seemed vacant, leaving even the adjacent cells bare and silent with their doors all swung open carelessly. Hermione recoiled from the window, an eerie sense of unease washing over the room as she turned back to find Lucius among the shadows once more. He wasn't moving, hadn't flinched or shifted at her poundings and it worried her. _'He's passed out,'_ she convinced herself, ignoring the inevitable possibility that the final shock of the barrier had extinguished his flame entirely._

_ She needed to get help, needed to find a healer or get back her wand to heal him herself, but the bloody door wouldn't budge. Clawing at the smooth steel with a desperation she had never imagined possible, Hermione called out to anyone who could hear her. "Please! We need help! Please!"_

_ As her fists battered at the door tirelessly, the subtle hissing coming from outside the cell went unnoticed until it was too late. The hissing grew louder and louder until it flooded her ears and blocked out all other noise. She couldn't hear the pounding of her fists or her pleas for help as the foreign tongue invaded her mind entirely. Her hands pulled painfully away from the door to cup over her ears, her eyes clenched tightly closed as she sunk down to the cold cell's floor. The pain shattered through her ears to her hands, trailing down the lengths of her arms until it reached the bulk of her torso and struck at her core. Her body fell against the ground until her back laid flat against the dirty stone floor, pinned weakly in place by the cruciatus curse that racked through her bones and threatened to drive her mad with the pain._

_ And then it had ended. As quickly as it started, the hissing ceased and the pain subsided, though the pounding in her chest had remained and the struggle to find a steady breath still made her body feel weak and useless. Her arms felt like pudding and her legs like rubber as she forced herself up off the ground, ignoring the caked on dirt and dust that now soiled her clothes. She limped towards the door with a wince as her right leg took too much weight than it could handle. Her hands fell to the door for support as her body leaned flush against it. "Please," the young witch pitifully called out to the empty hallway. The window took on the weight of her head as she dropped her forehead down against it, defeated and beaten but still left standing, still trying._

_ A soft tapping at the glass forced her head to lift away from it, her eyes climbing up the length of the door to peer out the window with the last scrap of hope she could dig out from inside her. The hallway was empty, cells still bare, and her eyes closed heavily with defeat. Just as she was about to collapse onto the floor once more, the soft tapping returned, louder this time but still just as rhythmic in its approach. Her gaze flashed up as she stood face to face with the piercing red eyes and the slick pale face of the departed Dark Lord, the thin magically charged glass providing the only means of a barrier between them. She jerked her head back away from the window as he clawed at it, pawing at the glass and hissing angrily at her before raising his wand. She flinched, recoiled with her hands over her face, and shielded herself from the burst of violent green light that shattered through the window and flooded the previously dark, dank cell._

"Miss Granger!" A tiny voice was shouting at her while bony, slender hands gripping at her shoulders, pinning her down as she thrashed from side to side. Hermione's screams drowned out the sounds of the little house elf's panicked pleas, leaving the tiny creature to think of no other remedy than to cover the witch's mouth roughly with her skeletal hands. "Miss Granger, quiet!"

Hermione's eyes jolted open as the remnants of her nightmare passed, leaving her left with only the screams as a reminder. Her throat felt hoarse, uncertain of how long she had been disturbed before the house elf had attempted to silence her. She was covered in a thin layer of cold sweat, earning her a steady wave of goosebumps that began in her face and spread down her body like wildfire. Her eyes focused on the frail creature now practically sitting on her torso as she tried to cover as much of Hermione's mouth as she could. The elf was a familiar sight, though a curiosity to see at after five in the morning, in her rented room at the Leaky Cauldron of all places.

"Miss Granger," Mimbi repeated, softer this time as she slowly peeled her hands away from Hermione's face. "Shh, Miss Granger, shh." She drew a frail finger up to her lips and pursed them outwards with a gentle shush.

Hermione nodded quietly, dropping her head back down to the pillow as she caught her breath and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Mimbi, what are you doing here? What time is it?" Her eyes scanned around the darkened room until she spotted the muggle wristwatch laying sideways on the bedside table. It showed half past five in the morning. "It's late. You shouldn't be here."

She began to sit up but the house elf pushed her back down. "Master Malfoy said protect Miss Granger. Keep safe." Mimbi sat up proudly and gave Hermione a stern nod, as if to say that was exactly what she was doing.

"You've spoken with him?" the witch asked impatiently. "When, Mimbi? When did he tell you this?" Her mind raced with the possibilities. Was Mimbi able to somehow apparate through elf magic in and out of Azkaban? Had she reached out to her Master when he didn't return home this evening? Hermione sat up, pushing the light little house elf down off of her chest and onto the foot of the bed instead. "When, Mimbi?"

"Two." Mimbi replied, lifting two slender fingers to emphasize her answer. "Two days past."

Hermione thought back. _'That was the morning after the wedding, the morning after he had decided to speak with the Minister and Harry.'_ Hermione groaned at the realization. Mimbi hadn't spoken with Lucius since his incarceration. She most likely hadn't even seen him, let alone received instructions from him regarding Hermione's well-being. "I'm fine, Mimbi." Hermione laid back down, yanking the sheets up around her as best as she could with Mimbi's weight still pulling them down to the foot of the bed. "I'm just having trouble sleeping."

The small elf looked down at her with her big, glassy eyes. She extended a hand and offered warmly, "Come." Hermione shook her head. The last thing she needed was to leave with Malfoy's house elf, in the middle of the night, while he was locked away in Azkaban. If they returned to the Manor, what promise was there that it hadn't already been flooded with dark witches and wizards, looted and left as nothing more than a safe house for the unsavory and the sinful. "Come." Mimbi repeated, shaking her hand towards Hermione. She drew her other hand up to her chest and laid it flat against the skin and bones. "Scared."

Having no proper gauge on the house elf's age, Hermione had always seen her as somewhat of a child. Her mind was simple, either beaten into such a state, or stifled and stunted of growth from the lack of education that some of the more fortunate house elves received. Her words were scattered, bits and pieces of possibly more elaborate thoughts, but as she tried to communicate her fears, Hermione wondered exactly how old Mimbi truly was. "You've been alone before." She stated, watching the elf for some form of clarification. Mimbi nodded. "This isn't any different. You're welcome to stay here for the night if you're afraid of the empty manor. I'm sure it's dark," She tried, attempting to narrow in on the house elf's fears in order to tackle them head on. If she was still a child of sorts, perhaps the darkness in combination with the oversized, ancient estate had scared the poor elf into seeking out the only source of comfort she had ever known: Hermione.

As the words left her, Hermione watched as Mimbi shook her head gravely. "No, dark," She shook her head again and pressed her hand against her chest. "No scared." Her free hand shook towards Hermione again, firmer and more desperate as she asked once more, "Come, Miss Granger. Come."

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><p><em><strong>ANs: My loose goal is to end this story at around 45 chapters, 50 at the most and 40 at the least. So I believe we're coming into the home stretch at this point. Fingers crossed that we manage to pull a happy ending out of this one! We'll see :) As always, your reviews and input is always greatly appreciated. I really do look forward to hearing your thoughts and responses to the various chapters. Thank you!<strong>_

_**xoxo WildBubblesRoam**_


	38. Chapter 37

_**Author's Notes: Not a particularly long chapter by any means, but a significant one. Let's get this ball rolling! Enjoy! (Also massive apologizes for the inexcusable delay)**_

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><p>The apparation from the Leaky Cauldron to Malfoy Manor was rougher than ordinarily. Whether it was her somewhat sleepy state or the potential dehydration from the countless hours she had spent crying in the bed, Hermione wasn't certain. They landed outside the front entrance just inside the tall iron gates surrounding the perimeter of the property. With the sun still hidden safely from sight, the manor's tall stone walls seemed darker than she had previously seen it. They approached the front steps, the doors left strewed open as the one on the left hung dangling off its hinges. Two long yellow strips of caution tape extended over the length of the entrance, denying entrance to anyone who dared to proceed. She took a step forward to examine the tape. It held the insignia of the Ministry of Magic on either end with a solid bold warning '<strong>Do Not Enter.<strong>'

"Are there charms or protective spells to alert the ministry if someone enters?" Hermione asked the house elf, tempted to step forward herself, if only to smell the familiar smells and feel the warmth of the few rare areas in the ancient home that hadn't gone cold over the years. The library, the bedroom, anywhere they had been together. It all called to her, but she didn't dare trip off any charms the ministry may have placed over the building.

Mimbi paused, lifting a large floppy ear to the doorway as if to seek out the spells through sound alone. She sniffed at the air, once, twice, and went back to listening. With a cheery smile and a confident shake of her head, she pulled at the caution tape until it snapped off of the door frame and fell down to the porch's floorboards. "Safe, inside." Mimbi stepped through the doorway and waited, but nothing happened. No alerts went screeching around them nor did any deterring spells shoot out to scare them away. Hermione followed her inside.

She was in awe at the state of the once elegant home. There had been a raid, and as she tip-toed over torn up floorboards and ogled at the gaping holes left scattered throughout the walls, her heart sank. It had been grand, once. Mimbi grabbed her hand like an eager young child and guided her through the halls, silent and wide-eyed as she saw with Hermione the utter destruction that the manor had been put through. _'If walls could talk,_' Hermione mused quietly as they made their way to the second floor. They had skipped various hallways and rooms, no doubt just as destroyed as the rest of the manor had been. The second floor was in no better shape. As they roamed around the empty home, going from floor to floor, wing to wing, the entire building's insides had been left to rot away in pieces. Mimbi brought Hermione to the library's heavy door but stopped before they could reach it. She nodded towards the door, silently urging Hermione to open it.

The witch's hand fell to the doorknob, twisting it slightly until she heard the familiar click and pushed the door open. She closed her eyes, readying herself for the carnage that was surely hidden inside. It smelled of old parchment and the aged adhesives that bound the books pages to their spines. The warmth she had remembered washed over her as a heated breeze escaping out of the room and into the hallway where they stood. Her heart raced as she pressed her eyes tighter together. To see their sanctum, their shelter above all the other rooms, obliterated and torn away from the manor's structure would prove to be her undoing. She wouldn't be able to fight back the tears and the wrenching in her gut. To lose their safe haven would mean to lose him all over again. Hermione couldn't will herself to open her eyes, she needed to prolong the torment for as long as she could and pretend it simply didn't exist.

"Look," Mimbi urged her gently, her hand slipping back against Hermione's palm with a comforting squeeze. "Miss Granger, look."

Hermione took a deep breath and forced back the distress that had begun to creep up her throat, locking itself in place with a large knot. She exhaled slowly, calming her fears, and opened her eyes. "Mimbi..." She breathed out in disbelief. The library was spotless, as warm and inviting as she had remembered it. Each book on the shelves sat organized and dusted clean. The sofa where she had spent countless nights learning all there was to know about Lucius Malfoy, and he with her, had been left untouched, saved by some means while the rest of the estate had taken the brunt of the ministry's assault. "How?" Hermione asked through brittle breaths.

Mimbi smiled proudly, letting go of Hermione's hand as the witch went off to go inspect every element of the room; the doubt at what she was seeing had surely set in. "Mimbi hide." The tiny elf patted her chest just as she had done before and repeated, "Scared."

"You were here?" Hermione hadn't expected Mimbi to stay during the raid. If anything, she imagined the fragile little house elf had vanished, apparated from the property until it had all ended, then came back to inspect the damage after the ministry workers were gone. No wonder the poor little thing had come to her in the middle of the night, terrified and wanting her company.

Mimbi pointed at the door silently. It appeared to be charred, though only from the inside. The thick wooden slab had burned, darkest around the edges and had gradually spread throughout the entire surface. It had been seared by magic, strong magic. Mimbi held up her hands towards the door and closed her eyes. Her brows furled as she concentrated hard, the strain reaching her temples and forcing the veins to protrude outwards slightly while her skinny little arms tensed. When she looked as though she was about to pass out from the built up pressure contained in her tiny, stick-figure of a body, a bolt of bright light flashed out of each hand, spreading from the palm down her long fingers and shooting out from the tips. It hit the door, slamming it shut and forcing it to seal firmly in place, warded against any and all forms of entry.

Hermione was in shock. The house elf pulled away from the door, dropping her hands down to her sides in exhaustion and drew in heavy breaths to recover the energy she had lost. House elves held incredible power, utilizing their own form of magic to assist in their day to day tasks and duties as servants to the wizarding community. But when push came to shove, they were nothing to laugh at. If they hadn't been sworn to serve witches and wizards, the possibilities for their own communal development and livelihoods were endless. But still, to fend off their assaults for who knows how long, Hermione was in awe. For the door to be left charred and burnt from the heat of her spells, Mimbi must have been protecting the room from their entry for an hour at least, perhaps longer. She stared at the tiny elf in shock. "You're incredible, Mimbi."

The elf's eyes squinted happily as she grinned proudly, fiddling with her fingers nervously as compliments seemed to be somewhat of a foreign concept. Though startled at first, she beamed giddily when Hermione moved towards her, wrapping her arms around the sack of skin and bones that made up the tiny creature's figure, and hugged her like she would a friend, a true friend. Mimbi was ecstatic, nearly moved to tears as she clung to the tall witch with wild hair and a warm heart. "You, stay?" She asked curiously. "Safe," Mimbi added firmly, reciting Malfoy's instructions like law. "Keep Miss Granger safe."

The witch nodded. "I'll stay for a day or two." She looked down at the elf still hugging her waist. Her eyes were tired and bloodshot, the wrinkles of her face seemed deeper and more pronounced than usual. She looked utterly exhausted, though through just cause. "But first, you get some rest. You've done wonderfully tonight, but you look like you're about to pass out." Hermione sent Mimbi off towards the sofa before turning to face the door and drawing her wand. "I'll set the wards for tonight. Maybe then we can both get at least an ounce of quality sleep."

After sleeping in late, Hermione woke from within the confines of the library, her head resting comfortably on a pillow with a massive chunky house elf foot lying a few breaths away from her face. It stunk from the lack of footwear, the bottom left callused and dirty. Hermione held her breath and carefully moved it away from her face as Mimbi snored away at the other end of the sofa. Quietly as not to wake the tired little elf up early, Hermione walked around the side of the sofa and roamed over the shelves of books. Plucking one off the bookcase, she carried it over to Lucius's enormous desk and sat down. Her fingers flicked through the pages as her eyes fluttered over the contents. It was a book she had read before, one he had introduced to her. The eerie family photographs came first, twin girls and a devoted, concerned wife. Her husband had tried his best to do what he thought was right, what he thought would help his family thrive and grow. He had been lied to, cheated out of the perfect life he had been promised, and in the end, killed for his poor decisions. He placed his trust in the wrong people and his family had to suffer because of it.

Hermione rubbed a bit of moisture from her eyes before it could develop into something heartier. She stared down at the family portrait placed significantly at the end of the story, unfinished, yet purposefully so. Her hand dropped down to one of the desk's drawers before shifting over to the one below it, searching for a spare bit of parchment. With a quill in hand and the fresh parchment at the ready, Hermione wrote her own ending.

_** He was a good man. When the weight of the war had lifted, his feet found their way home. He danced at his daughters' weddings, held his grandchildren in his arms, and died in the embrace of his loving wife, peacefully and painlessly. His legacy was that of honor, courage, and the unwavering ability to change and rise above the scars of the past. His grandchildren and their children after them learned of his trials, his struggles, and loved him all the more for having overcome his demons, rather than crucify him for being too weak to shake them sooner.**_

She dropped the quill back into its ink holder and read it over again. It was as it should have been, if the world had been just and the war had been merciful. She slipped the parchment in at the back of the book and closed it shut, leaving it out on the desk as she heard Mimbi begin to stir.

The rest of the day was spent restoring the kitchen. They abandoned the idea of somehow saving the dining hall. The table had been shredded into a mess of splintered shards of wood and the chairs weren't left in much better of a state. Hermione had always hated the institutional feel of it anyway, much rather favoring a cozy snack in the privacy of the library or on the small little antique table she had discovered only a day ago with Lucius. After cleaning the kitchen and preparing a halfway decent lunch from whatever remained unsoiled in the pantry, Mimbi and Hermione set out to tackle an even bigger beast.

If they planned to spend another night alone in the Manor without a proper Malfoy ancestor to restore the ancient wards that had held strong around the property for decades, they would need to place their own set of protective charms around the area. If the ministry workers planned to return, or worse yet, if the V.R.S. decided to drop by, they would need some sort of barrier between themselves and any intruders. The better part of the afternoon and spanning into the evening was spent fixing the broken front door, repairing any shattered windows, and finally lying down their own intricate layers of protective charms over the majority of the property. The massive front gates were strengthened, reinforced as they had once been.

When they had finally finished, it made Hermione wonder if she would ever truly bring herself to leave. Mimbi was just as devoted to her as she would be to her Master, and with the fresh wards to protect them, they could lock themselves away within the safety of the Manor until the war had passed. Lucius had suggested it, when they had been together days ago. His voice had seemed gentle, hesitant as he made his offer, yet she had ignored it then. Now, as their plans unraveled and her hopes had crumbled like the walls or the furniture of the manor, she regretted not agreeing to his offer when she had the chance.

Dinner was simple, a mixed pasta dish that Mimbi and Hermione had made together. The elf insisted over and over that it wasn't proper for Hermione to assist, that she could manage on her own, but after the fifth or sixth time of trying to wrestle a mixing bowl or wooden spoon away from the determined witch, Mimbi gave up, threw her scrawny arms in the air, and returned to the stove top to tend to the boiling pasta.

Before turning in early, Mimbi pulled a book off the shelf and brought it over to Hermione on the sofa. "Are you sure you want me to read this one? It's not exactly a story book." Hermione asked as the elf brought her a bright green book with gold trim and lettering over the hard cover. It was a book documenting the migration patterns of wild hippogriffs throughout Europe during the early 1900's. Without the ability to read, Mimbi had simply plucked it up off the shelf based on the beautiful design and the shiny gold lettering on the front. She nodded happily and curled up on the sofa right beside Hermione, her head resting comfortably against her shoulder as she waited for Hermione to begin reading.

The witch laughed. "Okay then." She flipped the pages between her fingers and began reading. Within the first twenty dull pages, Mimbi's snores interrupted her. Her head had flopped down fully onto Hermione's shoulder as she curled up closer to her side, snuggling tightly against the witch. No doubt her mind was racing with dreams of soaring hippogriffs and whatever else might help the frail little elf escape from reality, if only for the night.

When Hermione woke the following morning, Mimbi had already prepared breakfast. She brought their plates into the library on a neat little tray and set it down on the coffee table in front of the sofa just as Hermione took in a long yawn. "You're awake early." She commented and thanked Mimbi for the food. "We should try to straighten up a bedroom. Or drag a bed in here." Her spine popped as she stretched her arms up to the ceiling.

Mimbi stood beside the sofa and watched her patiently. Waiting until Hermione seemed a bit more awake, the house elf withdrew an envelope from her ragged garments. "For Miss Granger." She held it in front of her, her arm stretched out straight and stiff as her eyes bounced between the envelope and Hermione nervously.

Hermione hesitated, suspicions of all sorts already running rampant at the unexpected offering. "What is it?"

"For Miss Granger," Mimbi repeated and pressed the envelope closer to Hermione until she finally took it. "Very important." She added. The witch carefully opened the envelope and read the letter inside.

_**Go to the Weasley home. It is safe now, but be cautious.**_

_**Keep your wand on you at all times. Stay away from the battles.**_

_**I can't protect you anymore. I'm sorry to have disappointed you.**_

_**Please stay safe.**_

_**-Lucius**_

"When did he give you this?" Hermione questioned firmly.

Mimbi paused to work out the days in her head before replying, "Monday."

"Before we left for the meeting..." Hermione thought out loud, her eyes rolling back over the words on the parchment as if they would somehow change into something else if she concentrated hard enough. _'I can't protect you anymore. I'm sorry to have disappointed you.'_ She repeated softly in her head. It sounded like a goodbye, like he had truly accepted his Azkaban sentence and had finally given up fighting. Hermione shook her head with a frown. "This doesn't sound right. Did he say anything when he gave it to you?"

The elf nodded and tried her best to recite his instructions exactly, step by step. "Wait until Wednesday morning. Feed Miss Granger." Mimbi stopped to glance down at the tray of breakfast foods with a proud smile. "And give letter." Again, she seemed satisfied as she eyed the letter in Hermione's hands, promptly delivered just as she had been instructed to do. "Keep Miss Granger safe." Mimbi recalled the last of her orders, a strong conviction in her tone as though this final command from her Master had not been a command at all, but instead a mutual desire they both shared.

When the elf said no more, Hermione looked back down at the letter and read it again. _'Go to the Weasley home. It is safe now,'_ he had wrote. _'Safe?'_ She thought quietly. _'Now? Was it not safe before?'_ Folding the letter along the creases and slipping it into her pocket, Hermione turned to Mimbi. "That's all he said? Did he mention the Weasleys at all?" Mimbi shook her head. Something was wrong. She needed to get to the Burrow. "Mimbi, I need to go."

"Miss Granger come back?" The happy little elf asked with a sweet smile.

Hermione gathered the few items in the room that she had brought and shrunk them down to fit in her pockets. She took one last bite of the breakfast Mimbi had prepared for her and headed for the door. "I don't know, Mimbi. If anyone comes back here, I need you to leave, okay? Go somewhere safe and wait for them to leave before you come back. Can you do that?" The elf nodded again, sadder this time. She seemed like a child again, shoulders slumped down and in, as her head bowed towards the floor. She was disappointed, and possibly still afraid, but an order was an order and she would follow Hermione's instructions, even if it meant not seeing the witch again. Hermione pulled the tiny creature towards her and wrapped her arms around her skinny frame, gathering her up into a tight hug before departing alone for the Burrow.

As she apparated a short distance from the Weasley's properly, something felt wrong. A stirring in the pit of her stomach twisted uncomfortably as she caught sight of a deep red stain against the front steps. Her feet carried her steadily, carefully closer, as she saw a matching crimson splotch covering the door's handle. It appeared to be dry, perhaps hours old, but as she stepped over the soaked-in stain on the porch steps and tried to control her growing concern, she began to overhear familiar voices coming from inside the small home.

"Arthur dear, the wards. Someone is outside." Mrs. Weasley's hushed warning reached just barely beyond the door to Hermione. The sound of scurrying feet replied quickly before complete silence took over. Hermione stood frozen, uneasy with the fearsome anxiety in Mrs. Weasley's voice. Had they been expecting someone dangerous? And the wards, they had never been charmed to alert to visitors before. They had only ever been charmed to alert the casters if an intruder made an attempt to break in. All Hermione had done was step foot on the porch so she could knock, though now she was uncertain if knocking would be a safe decision at all given the amount of wands that were probably pointing at her from behind the door.

"I-," She began hesitantly. "It's just me, Hermione." She called innocently through the door.

The silence remained inside for a few seconds longer before one of the curtains in a nearby window shifted, just barely allowing a person from inside to peek out. "Ron, get back!" Arthur Weasley scolded quickly and the curtain dropped back into place.

"It's Hermione." Ron insisted but from the sounds of rough scuffling and a heavy thud against the wall from the opposite side of the door, Hermione guessed he had been subdued, if not tackled down to the floor before he could reach the doorknob.

Hermione paused, taking a step back. "C-Can I come in?" She asked tensely before adding. "There's blood. Is someone hurt?"

"We need to make sure it's really her. Ron, Harry?" Another voice spoke, deeper and with a thick accent that she recognized as that of the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Again, another pregnant pause filled the air between them until Harry finally asked confidently, "When you took the Defense against the Dark Arts final exam in our third year, your boggart turned into a professor. Who was it?"

Hermione's cheeks began to turn pink. She remembered it, of course. She had felt so embarrassed, running out of the room crying as the boggart yelled and berated her for failing. If someone truly was impersonating her now in an effort to get inside the Burrow, they would no doubt say it had been Snape. Everyone knew how hard he had been on the Golden Trio. It'd be a shock if he had been anyone's favorite professor, let alone a Gryffindor's favorite. And yet, when confronted with the boggart during third year, Snape was no where in her thoughts. "It was Professor McGonagall," Hermione answered loudly so Harry could hear her through the door.

A few whispered voices mumbled quietly, perhaps asking Harry if her answer was correct. Suddenly the knob began to turn and the door clicked away from its frame. Mr. Weasley was holding it open, stepping back with an apologetic look on his face. As she stepped inside, Harry wore the same expression and gave her a shrug. "Sorry, we just had to make sure."

The frizzy-haired witch took a quick scan over the people in the room. The entire Weasley family, plus Kingsley and a few Aurors from the Ministry stood scattered around the room. Nearly all of them looked battered. Their arms and hands were sprinkled with cuts and wounds of varying degrees of severity. Their faces appeared worn, bruised and swollen in some cases, while simply tired with blood-shot eyes for the others. "What happened?" Hermione breathed out in disbelief. If Lucius had known the Burrow would be attacked and ordered Mimbi to keep her away from it, unable to warn them or help fight along side them, she could never forgive him. But as she looked around the room, nothing seemed too badly out of place. There was no broken furniture, no holes in the walls like there had been at the Manor. The fighting had taken place somewhere else. "Was there an attack?"

An awkward feeling shifted around the room as its occupants glanced silently towards one another. Everyone was thinking something that no one was willing to say and if they remained mute for a moment longer, Hermione would have snapped, demanding to know what had gotten them so spooked and so uncomfortable around her. It was as if she was entirely out of the loop and it felt humiliating as their eyes simply bore into her with a certain judgment. _'They must know I was with Lucius at the meeting. They must have been told how I broke down and begged them not to take him away.'_ Hermione realized quickly, cringing at the hateful comments and remarks they must have made about her when Harry or Kingsley had told them what happened.

She thought of turning around and leaving without another word. Lucius had said the Burrow would be safe for her. Obviously he was wrong. Hermione began to shift slowly back towards the doorway when the Minister finally spoke. "I believe it'd be best if we spoke privately for a moment." He must have seen the concern in her eyes because before she could protest or ask another question, he added sternly, though masked with a mix of reassurance, "You have nothing to fear here."

Harry nodded in agreement, urging her to come forward as Kingsley began to move upstairs. Though apprehensive, Hermione followed. Harry stepped up the stairs behind her, completing the sandwich that she subconsciously noticed was trapping her from leaving. They took the stairway up to the first landing and entered the room that Hermione recognized as Harry's and Ginny's. It was dark and quiet until Kingsley flickered on the light and Harry closed the door behind them.

"Miss Granger, sit, please." The Minister instructed gravely, motioning towards the desk chair beside her. They waited for her to get seated before taking their own seats atop the bed and against a small dresser. Harry sat closest to her, laying his wand down peacefully against the mattress and bedsheets, though Hermione took note that he kept it on the side furthest away from her. _'Subtle,'_ Hermione thought and swallowed apprehensively.

Harry watched as her eyes trailed from his wand up to his face. "It's okay. I know you're probably still angry."

She didn't know how to respond. If she agreed, she would be admitting that Lucius meant more to her than he was supposed to. It would show how much it had hurt her for them to lock him away, but if she acted as if she couldn't care less, knowing how she had behaved during the meeting, surely they would see right through her lies. She gave a shrugging nod, so as to not fully commit to an answer, but to instead simply acknowledge that she had heard his statement.

Kingsley reclaimed her attention sharply. "Have you been in contact with Lucius Malfoy?"

Hermione frowned, holding back her bitterness as best as she could. _'You know I haven't. You saw to that when you sentenced him to life in Azkaban.'_ Her private thoughts were much saltier than her actual response. "How would I?" She asked, almost sarcastically as she bit her tongue. If they had summoned her up to this room to ask her stupid, trick questions, she regretted even more not leaving when she had the chance.

Her question went unanswered as Kingsley began with the next one. "Where were you last night?"

"At home." Hermione replied, vague though not entirely a lie. Since returning to the Wizarding world, she had spent nearly as much time at Malfoy Manor as she did at the Burrow or her parent's home. Even her rented room at the Leaky Cauldron could be considered her _home_ for lack of a better term. She crossed her arms over her chest defensively and turned to Harry. "What's going on?"

The golden boy looked pained, as if he wanted to answer, wanted to cave with the good guy, bad guy act, and just talk to her like the long-time friend he had always known her to be. But Kingsley continued with his questioning, this time asking for something personal, something that would leave her defenseless and vulnerable, something he had asked of Lucius before they detained him. "Miss Granger, if you could please hand over your wand."

A harsh scowl hardened her expression as she made no motion to withdraw her wand from the safety of her pocket. "What aren't you telling me?" Her tone took a demanding turn. She would play coy and polite no longer, pushing her vague responses and her bitterly sarcastic replies to the side. "There's been another attack, that's evident enough." Hermione motioned loosely towards Harry's forearm. The sleeve of his shirt had been torn, stained red from the wound that had begun to heal through magical means. She didn't need them to tell her what she could plainly see the moment she entered the Burrow. Her friends had been bruised and bloodied. It had to have been an attack, but they wouldn't even tell her that much and that's what didn't make sense. "You don't trust me, I get it. The second I walked through the door, you all made that extremely clear. But you don't need to treat me like some criminal."

Harry stopped her, carefully placing his words as sensitively as he could to make him appear as receptive as possible. He tried to hide his judgment, but she could feel it burning into her every time he looked her way. "Hermione, we just need you to tell us any type of involvement you've had so we can help you get out of this. Let us help you."

"You have nothing to fear here," Kingsley repeated his earlier phrase, granting it more significance as she realized it wasn't her closeness with Lucius that had them so untrustworthy of her. It must have been something else. They thought she had done something horrible, but they weren't dropping enough details to let her know what crime she was being so wrongly accused of.

One final desperate plea of innocence was all she could offer. She couldn't even say what she was innocent of, but it would have to do. They would have to believe her. "Whatever it is you think I've done, you're wrong. I haven't done anything. Harry, you've known me for years. We grew up together. You, of all people, have to believe me."

He wanted to speak, wanted to agree with her and tell her she was right and that he trusted her. He wished he could just get up and give her a comforting hug, for both of their benefits. She could see as much in his eyes, but there was something else there. Doubt.

Kingsley let out a whispered sigh as he made a slightly firmer attempt. "Hermione, I'm going to ask you one more time and I need you to be completely honest." His words hurt, the true depths of their distrust laid out there raw and steaming as she tried to understand what had caused them to go against her so strongly. The Minister of Magic bore into her critically and continued, "Did you have any part, through Lucius or otherwise, with the attack last night?"

She was exhausted of fighting them, tired of trying to guess what they were talking about and even more frustrated that they still seemed to think she had anything to do with it. "No, I had no idea there had been an attack until I came here and saw the blood on the front steps. Please, just tell me what's happened."

Her desperation must have shown through in her plea as Harry finally answered. "There's been a breakout at Azkaban. It lasted nearly all night. We only managed to get back here just as the sun was coming up. It was..." Harry seemed lost for words, shaking his head as he peeled over the long list of gruesome terms rolling through his head. "It was a massacre." He shook his head again as anger and devastation all mixed into one until his brows pressed down hatefully over his tear-glazed eyes. "We lost so many. I don't know how we're going to win this."

"The way we always have." Kingsley answered. "The light will always shine through, even in the darkest of times." He stepped away from the dresser he had been leaning against and lowered a reassuring hand onto Harry's shoulder.

Hermione watched as Harry began to recollect himself, pushing away the moisture at his eyes roughly with the heel of his palm and repositioning his glasses on his face. She wanted to comfort him just as Kingsley had done, wanted to tell him everything would be okay and that they could conquer any challenge they were meant to face, but she couldn't bring herself to rely on the hope that good would always trump evil, no matter how much she wanted to believe it.

In as poor of taste as it was, she wanted to ask about Lucius. She needed to know if he had survived the battle at Azkaban, for her own piece of mind, but she knew better than to ask. "If we lost as many as we did, surely they must have lost some as well. How many of them managed to break out?"

The Order had been so overwhelmed, so outnumbered and unprepared. They had to retreat, had to escape to safety before the area could be fully reclaimed and secured. It was a losing battle and as a result, they lost control of the prison. Harry shook his head, not wanting to believe what he knew to be the truth. "All of them, Hermione. We've lost."

"No," The Minister of Magic insisted firmly. "This war isn't over yet."

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><p><em><strong>ANs: Lots of behind the scenes things going on in this chapter. I'm sure a lot of you will be able to sort of map out everything that's happened, how it's played out, and what went on, but if not, next chapter should help clear things up a bit. But at least we know one thing for certain... This war is ON!  
>Feel free to leave reviews either here or through tumblr. I love reading how everyone interprets different chapters. Any guesses yet for how the story will end? It's coming closer and closer with each passing chapter!<br>**_

_**Thank you to everyone who's shown so much support and given so much feedback for this story so far. You all really are incredibly important and I really look forward to hearing from more of you. 3 Thank you.**_


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